I didn't know much (actually anything) about Lee before reading this book but it was VERY interesting to come in blind, learn about her influencer woes, and THEN take a look at her instagram. This was a super easy read that had me laughing, cringing, and in disbelief throughout. She did gloss over some heavy trauma's and events in her life and I wished she dove deeper into those as it would've given the boo more depth. Interested to see where life takes Lee so I gave her a follow after reading!

Influencers are everywhere nowadays, of course, and in this memoir, an early entrant into the influencing world discusses her experience and how it took over her life. Lee Tilghman was drawn into social media starting as a teenager and, through noticing the power of likes and comments, became a health influencer on Instagram who was widely courted by companies hoping to publicize their brands. She ultimately got everything from food to furnishings to travel for free, but the book relates how her actual life became increasingly subservient to her online life, and how her obsessive tendencies in other realms spilled over into her online life. For those of us who have never been drawn into the influencing world in the first place, it’s a close look at a very different kind of life, and the book can get a little tedious at times, mostly because that kind of life can come across that way. One can only hope that her ultimate recognition of the issues she had and subsequent attempts at healing will lead her to a consistently better place.

If you're online at all, you should be well aware that influencer’s lives (their posts/stories) do not necessarily reflect reality and for the majority of the time, it's just aesthetics and nothing more than that. Despite already knowing this, If You Don't Like This, I Will Die peeled back even more of the hidden "layers" in the lives of influencers.

I found found Lee's honesty refreshing although at times it seemed like she might not have been taken enough accountability at certain points. I already want to re-read this book and it was a great reminder why I could never be an influencer. It's a cancerous industry that ruins friendships, relationships, marriages, finances, etc.

Fantastic book that I will be recommending to my friends and will be purchasing on day one when it's released.

I am an OG @leefromamerica follower. I couldn't help but picture myself amongst the nameless followers she references often in If You Don't Like This, I Will Die. Commenting, consuming, being influenced. Some of the memories I have of myself of that time (~2018 or so), I realize that although I was following Lee from a position of utter fascination, I was also deeply influenced. It wasn't just Lee hawking adaptogens, but I am 100% sure I purchased and consumed adaptogens, supplements, probably matcha that she recommended.

I say this because I feel I am in the target demographic for this book - I still have an utter fascination and curiosity of what Lee's life was really like during those years. This book definitely delivers on that. It is a pretty straightforward recounting of what went on behind the scenes, which I think accounts for how enthralling this book was - it felt juicy, almost gossipy, to inhale Lee's life in her own words. I had the thought while reading this that it felt like a memoir from Taylor Sloane, Elizabeth Olsen's character from Ingrid Goes West, but also Ingrid combined with Taylor as one person.

That is where most of my appreciation of the book lies: it is helpful, as an influencee (is that a word?), to see more transparently not only what went into her career, but how she was feeling and how she was treated and treating others.

The thing that I really want in a memoir or autobiography though, beyond a recounting of the person's life, is some sense of "this is what I lived through and this is what I have come to realize about it" or "this is the outcome" or "this is what I am working on / doing now." Besides extremely surface-level realizations about the harmful nature of social media, I did not feel like Lee has actually learned anything about her time as an early influencer. I see the ending of the book reflected in her current approach to social media: "welp! I'm still gonna be online."

Ultimately I am very glad I read this - I just don't want this to be the blueprint for future early influencer memoirs. I am hopeful that others' reflections will be a bit more lived-in, therapized, something. In that vein, I don't think this is a must-read unless you were an LFA fanatic or just are morbidly curious about the ups & downs of influencer life in the late 2010s.

Goodness, we all knew that influencer’s lives aren’t all they are cracked up to be, right? This book certainly depicts that in a big way. Lee Tilghman life doing posts got way out of control, costing her friends, a relationship, and more. She began to rely on companies for freebies and income. She felt she had to post more and more often, to outfox the algorithm, like a rat running on a squeaky wheel until one day it all blew up on her.

Wow! Ok, so I didn't know of @leefromamerica before picking up this book, but going back into her Instagram and scrolling through the days she writes about in her memoir, I can see why she was such a big deal. The vibe and aesthetic of late 2010s is crystalized within her feed. The inventor of smoothie bowls, Lee was at the height of the influencer wellness trend that we're feeling the negative repercussions of today. To her credit, she completely understands this and most of the memoir details how her mental health, social life, and romantic relationships all suffered due to her worrying about posting 24/7. It is also a fascinating look at how her eating disorder went hand in hand with her obsessive healthy lifestyle.

I appreciated how transparent and thoughtful Lee was in her writing. There is nothing vapid about this book, and I think what she brings up is vital to talk about today. She freely admits that she would believe anything she would see on the internet, which led her down some unsafe and potentially harmful rabbit holes. The spread of misinformation on social media scares me everyday, but reading this book made me feel like the tide may be turning a bit. I really appreciate Lee opening up about her negative experience with being an early influencer, especially now in 2025 that we have to reckon with the monster that social media has become. I'm glad that Lee found peace and is living a less stressful and more meaningful life. This is a must-read if you are interested in influencers at all. I had such a hard time putting it down!

“If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die” is a memoir from OG health and wellness influencer Lee Tilghman, aka @leefromamerica. I have never followed her but know plenty of people that did.

I picked up this book because I’m always intrigued to learn more about the dark behind-the-scenes of influencing. That aspect of the book was well done – she shares with readers how she went from being an early Facebook user as a teen to an early Instagram user to an early influencer. You learn how she came to make a living off of influencing and the high price that she paid. It was fairly well written (although as one reader notes in her review, Lee has a tendency to “show and not tell”) and propulsive. I read the book in just a few hours.

The problem is that Lee doesn’t seem to have learned anything from her journey. She writes about how she learned early on in her “career” that confessional type writing drastically increased her engagement and following. And it seems she’s using that same tactic here in her book. She lets readers in but in a surface level way. And in looking at her present day content, her refusal to take accountability for her behavior at the peak of her fame, it is clear she hasn’t really learned anything. She was an early proponent of the MAHA mindset, eschewing the use of fluoride, for example, and urging others to do the same, only to quickly develop six canaries as a result. Why not own that? Talk about it? If not in this book then when?

If you can read this book with a critical eye, if the constant talk of disordered eating won’t trigger you, then you’ll probably enjoy this book. I certainly did, at times. But don’t go into it thinking you’ll read the story of a person who has learned from her mistakes and come out the other side. This sounds really mean, but I’d give the book an A- and the author a C.

I could not wait to read this book, as I am fascinated by influencers and influencing culture. Lee Tilghman's story is interesting and full of juicy details of influencer life in the book's first part. However, the story begins to drag a bit when she brings in additional stories and details without much intrigue or reflection. I lost interest halfway through the book and had a hard time wanting to finish. I would recommend this to someone obsessed with influencer culture or fans of Lee Tilghman.

#IfYouDon'tLikeThisIWillDie

Lee Tilghman’s memoir is raw, self aware, and surprisingly tender. It captures the surreal nature of internet fame and the personal unraveling that can happen when identity becomes performance. Her honesty about mental health, body image, and the search for meaning in a curated world is refreshing and often moving.

The writing style feels loose and conversational, which works well most of the time, though some sections could have used a bit more focus. Still, the vulnerability she brings to every page makes this a compelling and emotionally resonant read.

This book is for anyone who has ever questioned their place in the digital age or struggled to untangle who they are from who they are expected to be. A thoughtful and brave account of losing yourself and finding something more honest on the other side.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the eARC.

Lee Tilghman‘s memoir is a slice of millennial history - coming of age in the beginning of social media. I saw a reflection of my teen years through her remembering of AIM, MySpace, and Facebook. Of course, we will never know what it’s like for each subsequent generation, but Tilghman captures The emerging social media landscape in a way where you can see the problematic behaviors that we didn’t realize were occurring at the time. In this reflection I see my own eating disorder and desire for likes driving online use. Tilghman is candid in her own struggles and I will be curious to see what she continues to do after being canceled.

Lee Tilghman's memoir of her time as a wellness influencer is easy to read and has some strong writing, but overall I found it uneven. I wish that everything had been pulled together into a more cohesive narrative so that the full impact of her story could be felt.

The book culminates with Lee's decision to stop influencing after realizing how the career had taken a toll on every aspect of her life. There is also a very well done epilogue sharing her perspective after having stepped away for a while. The early parts of her story are easy to connect with as well, I enjoyed the descriptions of her early blogging days, her time working in marketing for a restaurant in NYC, and of how @leefromamerica got started. She shares engaging examples and details about her daily routine once in LA to make her IG her career, including the process for the smoothie bowls for which she was famous. Other developments in her career appear abruptly without much explanation or reflection.,however For example, at some point she mentions people are hiring her to cook for them and give workshops -- how did she get to that point? Is this something she was excited about? Likewise, Lee's description of traveling in Japan with her mom, searching for a green apple for hours because it was all she felt she was 'able' to eat, is outstanding and effectively conveys the toll her lifestyle had taken. A lot of time is spent on one particular romantic relationship, which is also a good example of how her career affected her life. These are contrasted with the less fleshed out and less reflective mentions of her struggles with orthorexia, the controversy over workshop pricing which led to her being 'canceled', and other significant events.

Overall I wish more of the story had been written as richly as the high points I mentioned, but I would recommend reading it. It does provide an interesting look into what it's like to be an influencer and an important take away.

Content warnings: there are several heavy topics that come up, though many are not discussed at length: disordered eating, abortion, addiction, social pressure, teenage sexuality

I picked this book up and read it within 24 hours. Clearly, it was incredibly interesting. I remember getting my Instagram account as I was going to study abroad in 2013 -- I took heavily-filtered pictures of my coffees, random statues, and anything else that I thought was fun. I didn't realize how long Instagram had been around before then, because Tilghman already had a large following at that point. She truly is one of the 'first' influencers, or at least in the first wave of influencers. It's interesting to read how the app changed, and how popular accounts had to change their behaviors along with the app's new features like stories and the algorithm. Tilghman is fairly straightforward about how these features caused her behavior to change. She is also pretty straightforward in how difficult it was to be her friend if you weren't also an influencer - I cringed every time she asked people to take more photos of her so she would have hundreds to choose from.

This book has a pretty heavy side plot about eating disorders, which were deeply shaped by her having had an eating disorder as a teen and being a healthy eating influencer. This part felt a bit under-examined, and I felt similar vibes as I did to Anna Marie Tendler's book -- she has a lot of deep feelings and experiences she wants to examine, but she isn't quite there yet. She wrote so casually about so many of her sexual experiences, and I did not understand her goal in doing so. In some of them, I felt like she was trying to show how she was out of control, and in others it didn't seem like an experience worth sharing outside of her relationship. It felt jarring to me, but my former purity-ring-wearing self may be showing.

So yeah - overall this was a fast read and very interesting, but I don't know how much of it will stick out to me a few months down the line.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. Lee Tilghman, aka @leefromamerica, was an OG health and wellness influencer, an early adopter of Instagram and someone who made a living off the platform when “influencing” was still a nascent job.

Lee has led a privileged life: growing up in Fairfield County, CT, then moving to New York to be a social media manager for a prominent restaurant and spending her nights on drug fueled binges and immersed in the city’s social scene. After she decided that life wasn’t for her, she moved to LA to dedicate herself to healthy eating, yoga, and wellness, where she became Instagram famous for her viral, aesthetic smoothie bowls. Soon enough, Lee was being sent hundreds of items of PR, getting flown around the world for sponsored trips, and making thousands of dollars from brand-endorsed posts. But behind the scenes were chaotic, unhealthy behaviors: undiagnosed orthorexia, obsessive control over her food, toxic relationships with her phone and image, and harmful romantic patterns.

I loved how immersed I felt in Lee’s life when reading this - I really felt that she took us with her through her rise and fall, especially in the detail she gave with her thoughts and insecurities at each moment. She doesn’t shy away from confessing her “bad” behavior, which I often see in memoirs. She cites a fascinating stat at the end of the book - that over half of Gen Z wants to pursue social media influencing as a career. After reading this book, that number scares me - it’s so, so easy to see how this job can ruin your life, your self-image, your relationships, and your happiness.

This memoir is a very fast and easy read. The first part of the book was a walk down memory lane- first household computer, AIM, Tumblr, blogging, etc. It definitely leaves you nostalgic if you grew up during that time. However, I had actually never heard of @leeofamerica before this book, so her social media presence and journey was all new to me. I enjoyed getting the inside scoop on influencers and how much is real and how much is fake. However, I just don't feel like there was that much depth to the book. There was a lack of accountability for the harm caused by actions. But overall a very interesting look into the influencer lifestyle. I don't normally rate non-fiction, but I give this 4/5 stars.

I absolutely love biographies…. And this one does not disappoint….. and don’t we all wonder what it’s like to be famous, an influencer, or recognized, at least once when we go out in public? This “Lee from America” makes you really feel sorry for her. You actually feel like you’ve lived in her shoes…. But thankful that you have not…. Really…. I mean, what utter chaos of a life, and to end up dependent on any substance or to have any addiction as a way to get through the day, it’s not the way anyone hopes to live one day. Yet here she is, envied by everyone and killing herself slowly thinking she’s just got to keep up….I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live that way. My heart truly ached for her, and I wish her all the best, but I’ll never understand why people care so much about what others think of them. It’s crazy what lengths people will go to just to be liked by people who don’t even matter. That’s the scary part. Great book though. Very entertaining. I recommend this book to anyone that chases the “likes” on any social media platform…. Isn’t that almost everyone…..? Scary…..

This book was given to me in exchange for my honest review.

This was a quick, easy read, written in an authentic voice. I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes view into wellness influencer circles and the author's personal journey, and felt the author was very honest about her experiences and that industry, in general. I would have liked for the author to go a bit deeper beyond the surface, and to have added some more self reflection. We read about a lot of interesting things happening, but I feel there is more that could have been added to the story for a deeper view. As someone who wasn't familiar with the author's social media presence, I felt there were some blind spots for readers like myself. Overall, this was a very readable and attention-grabbing book.

Lee's book was fascinating and challenging to put down. I was invested in her story from the start. It had all of the elements I desire in a story - fast-paced, interesting people, self-discovery, and much more. The online world of Influencers is wild and crazy, and Lee shares it all! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Five-star book for certain!

So, I ate this (no pun intended) UP! I hadn't heard of Lee Tilghman (@leefromamerica) prior to this book, but I did take the time to look at her page, going all the way back to her first ever Instagram posts. I totally see why she took off at the time she did - the vibes sent me STRAIGHT into 2013. This book is insanely nostalgic. I ended up looking up '2012 tumblr aesthetic' 'tumblr grunge' and 'american apparel skirt' (you know the one) to explain to my boyfriend the vibes of that era. Cleary, I was also extremely online at that point in time. Overall, it's a super binge-worthy, interesting book.

Here's where it feels murky to me: Some of her current posts don't entirely match the message of the book to me, but maybe the point is that a lot of her earlier content WAS authentic, but it got lost over time? This definitely offered some insight into influencer culture and the addictive thrill of social media. However, it's hard to fully feel bad for someone who is getting free trips all over the world, and doesn't have to buy 80% of things they need or want because they are sent them for free. While this centers on the wellness community, I think a deeper theme here is one of identity. WHO is Lee when she isn't posting, or doing something just for likes and content? What does she actually enjoy and want to do? Who does she want to me? I also really liked the 'I started doing this because someone online said it, and I took it as fact' tidbits, because I think this is a HUGE issue. The amount of times I hear 'well I heard on *insert social media here*', and it's something that is entirely false and possibly damaging.

There's too much for me to unpack here (disordered eating, social pressures, addiction, family dynamics, etc.), but I really enjoyed this open and easy to read memoir.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC.

Influencer culture is like a train wreck, you sort of want to look away but it is impossible. In the age of social media we have complete strangers on the internet pushing, influencing you to do this/that, try this/that, live this way/that way.

It is addictive and so easy to fall into these tiny squares on Instagram. Influencers lay the framework for almost hypnotizing and rewiring our brains. So and so does this so I absolutely have to. All while thinking we cracked the life code. Tiny hits of dopamine but can have detrimental, negative effects on how we live and view the world around us.

Lee From America is no exception. In the health and lifestyle world of social media, she reigned supreme.
From her decadent whole food, organic plated dinners to her mouth watering smoothie bowls, to her workout routine, it is no wonder so many people (particularly women aged 18-45) were locked in. Lee is so successful and radiant, if only I could be that way too!
In reality Lee talks candidly about her struggles with self image, eating disorder, mental health, failed romantic, platonic, and familial relationships. The source is influencing on social media. It is a roller coaster she can’t stop and get off. Until she does.

If you have ever wondered what it is like to get a behind the scenes scope into the life of an influencer, this book is for you.
I tore through her book fairly quickly as the pace held nicely and there was no fluff.
Also, I hope Lee is getting all the professional help she can to guide her through the next phases of her life without the constraints of feeling valued receiving 30,000+ likes on a post.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read If You Don’t Like This I Will Die by Lee Tilghman.

eye opening look at influencer culture and how toxic it can oftentimes be. i do feel like i wanted/needed more later in the timeline, and at points it does feel like she isn't taking full accountability, but this book was a quick and fun read. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.