“On Our Best Behavior is a stunning, big, and bold encyclopedia of how to live—the first post-pandemic book to take our latest measurements and provide something fresh to comfort, embolden, enlighten, and enrich who we are today. Elise Loehnen is never instructive but always right. The book never flags; each section has a takeaway for how to live wiser and an anecdote to help you feel less alone. On Our Best Behavior is nothing short of a tangible necessity in our new intangible world.”

—LISA TADDEO, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THREE WOMEN

“What if women finally found freedom—because we gave it to ourselves? In On Our Best Behavior, Elise Loehnen brilliantly reframes our toxic cultural programming and helps us to see that what we thought were our sins are actually our greatest virtues. This book is the gift we have all been waiting for.”

—LORI GOTTLIEB, New York Times bestselling author of MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE

“In On Our Best Behavior—a raw cri de coeur, penetrating social analysis, and revealing personal reflection—Elise Loehnen deftly deconstructs one of the central ideological buttresses of patriarchal society: the shaming of women for having human desires, strengths, capacities, and strivings of body, mind, and soul. Doing so, she provides a guide to liberation and a return to the authentic feminine self.”

—GABOR MATÉ, MD, New York Times bestselling author of THE MYTH OF NORMAL

"With equal parts wit, wisdom, erudition, and warmth, author Elise Loehnen guides us on a journey through history, culture, and our own psychologies to not just investigate the limiting effects of patriarchal thinking in women’s lives, but to free them. Pleasure, connection, trust, and joy—all these and more await the reader lucky enough to spend time in conversation with Loehnen’s truly remarkable mind. Half historical docent, half big sister with a hot cup of tea, read this author and change your life."

—TERRENCE REAL, New York Times bestselling author of US