The Art of Social Self-Promotion

Book excerpt: Author Kathryn Latour gives it to you straight. She has written a how-to manual for women to become the type of person she absolutely loathes: social self-promoters. This tongue-in-cheek self-help book, if applied, will help women navigate the social seas to become socially popular where everyone in her community knows who she is and regards her as the most accomplished person they know but is someone a few of us will actually hate. "These women don't just think they are better than the rest of us, they know it. The worst part of it is this: It's as if they have memorized this book cover to cover because they have learned not to ever show their faults. Finagle is their watchword." This book is needed in our society today to shine a light on those--mostly women--who seek to jockey themselves into positions of power using the innocuous but lethal means of befriending people in a nonhumanistic manner. But they are more than just adult mean girls. They are practiced con artists who actually convince others that they are goodness personified. These type of people are more prevalent than we would like to think, and they leave our society devoid of soul. So read this book if you must but read it only for entertainment. If you read it intending to put it into practice, you will know you have succeeded when you realize that if we actually knew you, we would despise, even loathe, the socially self-self-promoted you.