If You Don't Like This, I Will Die: An Influencer Memoir

by Lee Tilghman

A powerful and illuminating memoir that exposes the stark and rarely-seen reality of influencing as a career.

Lee Tilghman—also known as @LeeFromAmerica—was one of the first wellness influencers. To her nearly 400,000 followers, she posted about skin care routines, sleep hacks, smoothie bowls, travel tips, and other rituals of #SelfCare. Her sponsorships with such brands as Madewell and Subaru netted an income of over $300,000 a year. On the grid, her life seemed perfect.

But behind her carefully curated posts, Tilghman was in crisis, suffocating from the unrelenting demand of keeping up her online facade. Her friendships frayed from an inability to enjoy any activity, even a simple dinner, without taking hundreds of photos. She found herself viewing everything she did as potential content for Instagram. The more she shared, the more her followers craved. Her romantic relationships suffered from the pressure to “hard launch.” Her job’s focus on food led her to develop orthorexia: an unhealthy obsession with eating “perfectly.” At her lowest point, she looked around her apartment to realize every item she owned had been given to her by brands in exchange for posting. After a stay in a mental health facility to address her disordered eating and psychological decline, Tilghman quit influencing as her primary career and set out to discover who she really was.

If You Don’t Like This I Will Die is a bold critique of the influencer economy while also a relatable story for anyone who has struggled with the unreasonableness of online expectations. With over half of Gen Z aspiring to be influencers, nearly three out of five teen girls experiencing “persistent sadness and hopelessness,” and the US Surgeon General calling for a social media warning label, Tilghman’s memoir couldn’t be more timely and necessary.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography, Social Media, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

240 pages, Hardcover

Published August 12, 2025

Reviews

[Cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

🎵❌IT'S ME, HI, I'M THE PROBLEM, IT'S ME🎵❌!!!!!!! Let me just state one thing, I don't like rating people's life story, and I have the utmost respect for them for coming out and telling their stories, but this book didn't sit right with me for many reasons. I have no hate towards this author, but some of the things she did, I didn't agree with and as a reader it didn't appease me. I was so excited to get my hands on my second memoir of 2025, but this one left me super disappointed. My one and only pro for this book was that I applaud the author for telling her story, but for me the cons outweighed the pros, which unfortunately made me lower my rating tremendously, in the beginning, If You Don't Like This, I Will Die written by Lee Tilghman was a strong four star, but the author did some things that didn't sit right with me. Let's get into the cons, shall we? This author had two abortions because her career was way more important than having a baby apparently, she new she wasn't on birth control, she knew her partner didn't use condoms, she knew her partner didn't pull out, well it takes two to tango, so many women struggle to get pregnant, and for this author to be so careless while she's having sex and gets pregnant and then proceeds to have two abortions just didn't sit right with me at all, another reason I had was that this author didn't do anything to help her eating disorder and social media obsession- she didn't give away and tips to her readers that also suffer from eating disorders, and lastly, the ending was so rushed for me, Lee told us she walked away out of the blue, but she never told us how she coped and how she had the courage to walk away from social media. First and foremost, these are just my thoughts and opinions, this memoir might work for other people, but unfortunately it didn't work out for and that's okay, I wish Lee Tilghman nothing but the best. If this memoir sounds up your alley, then mark your calendars for August 12th, 2025.

THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY AND SIMON & SCHUSTER FOR AN ARC OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW!!!!!!!

TRIGGER WARNING'S
~Child Abuse~
~Physical Abuse~
~Verbal Abuse~
~Mental Abuse~
~Drug Use~
~Depression~
~Eating Disorders~
~Abortions~
~Mentions of Suicide~

"💔😭Women who are hurt and jealous react with anger when they see other women succeeding or making money. Because they believe they cannot achieve that for themselves. Taking the woman down is easier than taking a positive action for themselves to get where you are💔😭".

"😭Today, if a college kid is big on social media, they would likely be adored and envied for it. But back then, being well known online just meant you were a loser who didn't have any real friends😭".

"💯Partying less meant I had more energy and an actual desire to take care of myself💯".

"🤔How could some people be so good at social media and have almost zero social skills in real life?🤔"

Lee Tilghman began blogging when she was was seventeen years old, where she created her blog- For the Love of Peanut Butter and soon later Lee From America. Lee's life online officially started the day when she was just twelve years old and her father brought home their family's first ever computer from Best Buy, well her mom had a thirty minutes per day rule where Lee and her sister only had thirty minutes a day to spend time on the computer. Eating carrots was one of the hundred conscious and subconscious behaviors Lee did throughout the day to avoid sugar, well in her sophomore year of high school, Lee developed a severe eating disorder, it all began with a contest among her field hockey friends to see who could lose five pounds the fastest, well soon the other girls would quit saying they loved too much, but Lee kept going, she altered her body through calorie restriction where all she ate was red bell peppers, one hundred calorie Special K snack bars, mini Dixie cups of Fiber One, and salad with no dressing. During her senior year of high school, Lee spent two months at a live-in residential treatment facility in Florida because her mother knew Lee was struggling with an eating disorder. Lee was one of the very first wellness influencers, to her nearly forty thousand followers, Lee posted skin care routines, sleep hacks, smoothie bowls, travel tips, and other rituals of self care.

During college, Lee started a blog about her recovery where she shared healthy foods to eat so no one else would suffer from eating disorders. Lee loved her online life but she didn't want it to blend into her real life- well unfortunately that happened and everything just sky rocketed. Lee's blog was like her secret personal diary, but later shut her blog down because she wanted to a feel a sense of normalcy. In 2011, right before her senior year of college, Lee uploaded her very first photo to Instagram @LeeFromAmerica which is a social media page about a twenty-two year old woman starting a life in New York, it's where she also posts smoothie bowls and new flavors that she invents such as peanut butter and chocolate, red velvet with beets, carrot cake, caramel swirl, and blueberry maple coconut cream- okay I won't lie, these actually sound really delicious. This is where Lee starts a healthy Instagram community where she made new friends with like minded women. Lee posts a picture of a smoothie bowl every single morning, well smoothie bowls remained her top preforming posts, but soon later brands started to reach out to Lee for collaborations where she had to post pictures and videos to social media of every single item that a brand would send to her- soon everything in Lee's apartment would be from brand deals- not anything she paid for with her own money. Lee would need to post to social media in order to benefit the company that would send her products. After brands would reach out, soon later Lee's life would be consumed by social media.

As a wellness influencer, Lee needed to look the picture of perfect health, she couldn't have hairs on her chin, she couldn't spend days in bed, and she also couldn't sport a ring of fat around her belly that she couldn't lose. Lee then started posting morning workouts, shortly after she started uploading a daily story of her morning caffeinated beverage, where she later became "The Matcha Girl" on Instagram where she posted "Matcha Morning's". Lee concerned me quite a lot, she was obsessed with posting on social media even when she had the flu, Lee was more worried about validation and money in her bank account than spending time with her friends. One day, Lee felt super guilty and anxious when her follower count had stopped growing at lightning speed because she didn't post for one damn day. Lee told her followers the importance of loving yourself as you are, but it annoyed me because she never took her own advice, she was constantly changing her body, she would post pictures of herself crying, she smoked and did drugs because she wasn't happy that her follower count was going down. It just bugged me with how she portrayed herself. Before I forget, Lee suffers from Orthorexia- which is an eating disorder where a person overly fixates on eating healthy food. Again, I wish Lee nothing but the best, but some of things she did just didn't sit right with me at all. I can't stand when a person who is highly followed on social media tells their followers to stay healthy and take care of themselves, but that person can't even take their own advice, it's like they are living two different lives. Like I stated in the beginning of my review, it's me that's the problem, because I wasn't okay with what this author did as a human being. Some might agree with her and that's okay, but for me it wasn't okay, and I felt like it ruined my reading experience.

[Lauren Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a relationship and eating disorder memoir (an uncomfortable, confessional one) written by an influencer, not a memoir that interrogates influencing. This is a shame. Lee owes her followers—some of whom she gradually misled into orthorexia and disordered eating over many years—a lot more. Since “quitting influencing” a few years back (though she remains very much online), she’s had countless opportunities and platforms to address her role in mainstreaming and normalizing problematic wellness pseudoscience, practices, and products. Instead, she’s chosen to (continue to) focus on her trauma and hurt feelings rather than on the broader implications of her considerable influence.

Her followers, the ones who catapulted her to both fame and infamy, only play a bit part in this memoir, surfacing mainly when Lee feels validated or invalidated by their comments, or when their lack of engagement affects her bottom line. Not once does she meaningfully examine the deeper whys behind their fawning or their frustrations. It all feels so cynical, and (especially listening to the audio book and hearing her tone) I didn’t get the sense that Lee has really grasped just how appalling some of her actions were (admitting to posting an MLK quote out of a sense of obligation, stealing from OV, lying about plans to donate proceeds from her matcha workshops, etc.) hence why this such an uncomfortable listen/read. Serious moments that merited at least some degree of reflection came across as just goofy anecdotes in her telling.

That said, this is a memoir, and it is her story as she understands it now, but it’s pretty half baked. I gave it two stars rather than one because it does answer some lingering questions I’ve had about her online persona and motivations. However, I think she would have benefited from a more hands-on editor and perhaps just some more time to reflect on this period in her life.

To be clear, I don’t think this should have been a 200-page apology, but I do think that Lee and her publisher missed a really valuable opportunity to say something more meaningful and enlightening about influencing.

Maybe her next book—and I’m sure there will be one, as she continues to rebrand herself as an ex-influencer—will be more critical?

[Cece Metzdorff · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a very addicting read/listen - I gobbled up the audiobook in 2 days. But, kind of in a "car crash can't look away" sort of way.

I followed Lee back in her peak influencing days, and even implemented many of the wellness tips she shared with her followers. I always watched from the sidelines, never commented or DM'd, and I found the backlash she received during her workshop announcements to be unnecessarily harsh at the time but fascinating to watch unfold.

I've continued to follow her on IG and as a free subscriber to her newsletter, so I feel fairly up-to-date on her current world view and journey over the last 5+ years since her cancellation and hiatus. There have been moments where I've considered becoming a paid subscriber to her substack because I enjoy some of the content she puts out, but I've never pulled the trigger because her incessantly unapologetic tone and weird takes on certain topics can rub me the wrong way. My intention is not to be unduly mean, but the mediocre writing and occasional typos have put me off as well, considering she mainly considers her profession to be a writer. So, I went into reading this book with some skeptisicm and mostly out of curiosity after following her on social media for 8+ years.

My biggest takeaway is that I feel like half of the book is missing. I was expecting so much more about the last 5 years of her life, navigating alternate careers and grappling with her relationship to social media and influencing. Instead, the book ended with her going into eating disorder recovery in 2019 and we got a short epilogue that barely scratched the surface on her current relationship to social media. The entire book also reads as "first this happened, then this happened" - without much self-reflection on how she views those events now looking back.

I'm also not sure if this was intentional, but she comes across as extremely unlikeable throughout the entire book, even going back to her behavior in childhood. I kept waiting for some sentiment of remorse for her actions, but it never arrived (which I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering how blatanly unapologetic she has been the last few years for the harmful wellness ideas she put out into the world.) The book was also surprisingly focused on sex. I understand how some of it was perhaps central to the storyline, such as her father calling her a slut and connecting that to her need to prove herself and seek validation, but a lot of the sex stories felt unnecessary and if I'm being honest, came off as a bit of a braggart.

In short, I was expecting so much more reflection about influencing as a career but was mainly left with a recounting of events that I had already watched unfold on social media, with some peeks behind the curtain. Maybe I am expecting too much out of a memoir, but I genuinely thought there would be more of a cultural critique.

[Sam Dolph · Rating 1 out of 5]

i didn’t have high expectations for this one but i’m actually appallingly surprised by just how bad this was! maybe i would have given this 2 stars instead of 1 if i hadn't listened to the audiobook? listening to her read this felt like listening to a middle schooler trying to read aloud in class... flippant and performative with 0 self awareness or connection between voice and content in a way that made me feel like she was somehow trolling me as the reader. her overall perspective of her years as a wellness influencer read as: oMg!!! loOk at how cRazy mY liFe was!!! all this stuff just kept hAPPENING to me!!!! it was sooOOooo crazy omg!!!! idk hOOOwww it even happened lol !!!!! all while just like vaguely blaming instagram and late-stage capitalism without any real self or societal interrogation about what it means to be a wellness influencer and why it and the overall construct of influencing/social media/capitalism is harmful, besides it just being a thing someone can become addicted to that often promotes disordered eating and unrealistic expectations. there was a big opportunity here to say something meaningful and critical about the world the author was a part of, but it really just felt like another way to curate the already curated life everyone watched from afar. idk why i am even still writing this review, the hollowness of this book and the way it's all presented by the author just really fills me with rage. ok bye!

[Patrycja Klara Ziemienowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews. But I became Lee's follower on Instagram around 2018, so I’ve seen many of these events from the other side of the screen. I really liked her content, but I soon realized I was heading toward orthorexic behaviors myself—ones that cost me a lot of money and joy in life. As soon as I recognized that, I stopped imitating her lifestyle, though I kept following her until now. I already knew that the wellness industry, social media, and influencers profit from our attention and online shopping, exploiting the very human desire to be healthy. I thought that’s what the book would focus on—with Lee as a victim of her own influencing career and the toll it took on her private life. But it turned out to be not quite like that. It’s not only the influencing to blame in this case—it’s her.

After reading the book, I’m left asking myself: how did I get so fooled by the sweet Lee I saw online versus the deeply disordered person she appears to be in the book? She comes across as very toxic and destructive to herself and to others—manipulative, careless, sadly insecure, and self-absorbed to a degree that honestly scares me, with little self—reflection and accountability. If she were my friend, I would suggest seeing a psychiatrist for a diagnosis—and I don’t mean just an eating disorder, but rather a personality disorder. This isn’t mental-health shaming; I’m simply left feeling quite disturbed and with mixed emotions about my years of misplaced sympathy, when all along I was being deceived just to keep me liking her. We all know influencers' lives aren’t real—I’m not naive about that—but the extent of Lee’s calculation and obsession is truly eye-opening.

"Around this time, I wrote in my nightly journal: I want my followers to continue to love me and obsess over me. Keep feeding the cult."

And I’m afraid nothing seems to have changed, even after her hiatus and the release of this book.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

He wasn't interested in me. He was interested in the online version of me. At this point, I was still aware that those were two separate things. (loc. 1034*)

Millennials were the first generation to live our lives on the Internet, and though things have (obviously) changed quite a lot since the 90s and early 2000s, Tilghman was invested from the early days. Back then, it was AIM and LiveJournal and eventually the early days of Facebook. Instagram and TikTok weren't even on the horizon, and influencers didn't exist. But people were already in it for the clicks and the views and the followers—and it wasn't long before the landscape shifted, and Tilghman realized that her social media savvy could get her free stuff. Could earn her money. Could be a career.

Now...I understand that The Youths these days view influencing as a viable career path, the way my generation dreamed about being a musician or an athlete except perhaps without the requirement of outsize talent. I can't really imagine wanting it as a career path (the constant search for external validation from strangers on the Internet, but with the added pressure of that external validation being necessary to pay your bills), but for some still undetermined reason I'm invested in books on the topic. And so here we have a memoir by an influencer who got into it in the earliest days of influencing, who rode the high (and was often pretty miserable in the process), who fell down and got out—and then who jumped back in again. (Though I'd never heard of Tilghman until I saw this book, and it doesn't go into the "back in" part in any detail, so I'm not entirely sure what that means—fewer sponsored posts, more Substack?)

But what intrigues me more is the disconnect between 1) walking away from curating her life for an online audience and 2) writing something of a tell-all book that is basically a different curation of her life for public consumption. It's not a total disconnect—the story isn't "I shared my whole life online, learned the error of my ways, and am now sharing my whole life on paper"—but it is still kind of..."let me peel away the facade of the curated life I showed you online and show you an equally curated mess underneath". That's not entirely criticism; all memoir is curated, one way or another. Documentaries are curated. "Reality" TV is not just curated but masterminded. But I guess I'm left thinking that Tilghman clearly came away knowing how damaging her influencing career was for her (whether it would have been possible to do it in a healthier way, I don't know), but it's less clear that she's aware that her job was part of a broader problem. I'm left with the sense that if she'd been able to find a better work-life balance (and if she hadn't eventually faced backlash, albeit not about sponsored posts), she'd still be making her living from Instagram. Maybe not. Maybe still deleting comments asking for accountability, and maybe not. But either way, where does that leave us?

I'm still glad to have read the book. It aligns with some of my odder reading interests, and it does shed a certain degree of light on...well, if not necessarily the darker side of #influencerlife, then at least the sheer grind that can go into making a living from sponsored posts. Under other circumstances I might recommend it to teenagers who think that influencing is their dream job, but it's too explicit for me to actually follow through with that recommendation (Me, texting a friend: Welp, I'm 7% in and she's describing, in some detail, being pressed into giving a blow job to a guy she barely knew and getting caught by her father). It still makes for interesting reading, though—something to pick up if you're looking something simultaneously light and grim, or if you've been as equally curious and repelled as I have by the idea of a career built on "likes".

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

[Margot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vapid, shallow, disingenuous, and takes lack of self awareness to levels I previously thought unimaginable. Unintentionally hilarious. What clown at Simon and Schuster wanted to publish this dross?

[kayla goggin · Rating 2 out of 5]

i kinda think the memoirs that fail to do what they set out to are more interesting to me. this is def one of those so let me write in my diary here for a min

i like memoirs because i’m curious about image-making. it’s interesting to watch someone determine what the “self” is, how people take their lives and decide what the story of it is. on its surface, this is a memoir about an internet addict who struggles with an eating disorder while finding success as a social media influencer. the writing is fine and the structure was clearly guided by the hand of an editor who cared. overall, it’s pretty mid. i think the events simply occurred too recently to allow for deep reflection.

but there’s something actually good here in how well the book captures a problem which is so ironically mirrored by lee’s struggles with her online persona: that vulnerability does not necessarily translate into connection. vulnerability (by itself) cannot be used as a currency to buy empathy, closeness or even understanding.

lee is willing to present herself as totally unlikeable, self-obsessed, utterly consumed with curating her online persona. she dutifully confesses to embarrassing things over and over. but the perspective she says she gained from spending time offline (and getting treatment for her eating disorder) is barely even described. the book wants you to watch lee self-destruct and empathize with her, but recounting events and emotions is not enough. vulnerability is not enough. it’s exposure. it’s only halfway to connection.

frank exposure of the darkest parts of the self may as well be part of the job description for people wanting to have careers online as writers, influencers, etc. it’s expected at this point. and lee is very willing to give it - the question that hangs over this book is: to what end????

this is sort of a memoir of disconnection - a story of a person who is both struggling to find the tools to be understood by others and terrified of being understood.
if vulnerability in the form of soul-baring Instagram stories and commercial memoirs isn’t the key what is? it’s like she only knows how to make herself into a product for consumption, believing that that consumption equates to a bond between herself and the consumer. and that’s interesting to me - that feels like a very modern problem.

[Cari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof. Well, I’ll give her one thing — she is VERY GOOD at her job. This book was incredibly scrollable. I read it on my phone in a few hours rather than perusing my Instagram feed.

I was actually really excited to get this arc. I enjoyed Lee From America’s Instagram content quite a bit when I was diagnosed with PCOS in 2017, and I felt bad for her when it was clear the influencing pressure of living in public had gotten to her.

But this book… is not good. It tells instead of shows, and it offers salacious details about her life in a super-clinical fashion. Like, she’d drop full paragraphs hinting at abuse, then quickly pivot to a different topic. I don’t need to read the gory details, but the whole book was surface level.

I feel like this could’ve benefited from a different editor… someone who would’ve encouraged lee to tease out the important stories in a way that made me care about her as a person. Because again, I did at one point care about her in a parasocial way — and I left this book thinking the real author might actually be a caricature of what she was before her big rise and fall.

Maybe that’s the point? Maybe she wants to drive a huge wedge between her previous lifestyle brand and what we think of her today.

As much as I love the title, I’m so sorry to say… I do not like the actual book. Please don’t die, though. I’m a stranger on the internet and my opinion does NOT matter.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc

[Kate Martinez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Deeply disappointed. This feels unfair to review, and harshly, because it’s a memoir… this is the author’s story to tell… but this was portrayed and marketed as an *influencer* memoir when really it was all about her disordered eating struggle and how it mutated into other obsessions and disorders. Also… you can’t say it’s a tell-all and literally deliver one-liners and move on. This is essentially retelling what followers (like myself) witnessed transpire in real-time… but years later, from her own POV. There wasn’t anything more, really… we all saw the struggle. The spiral. The cancellations. The even bigger spiral. There was very little telling of what went on behind the scenes from her influencing career. It was centered on her relationship with said partner and with food. That wasn’t even the biggest let down though.

It’s a shame to see a white woman who experienced all she did, rise to this level, fall so hard, and learn nothing. The way you out yourself for stealing from a company??? Absurd. The way you own posting on MLK day because you felt obligated to and for no other reason??? Sick. The way you blatantly state that the workshop donation program was a LIE?? Disgusting.

Again, honestly more ashamed now than ever before to state this but, as a long-time follower who was HEAVILY influenced by Lee in her peak… this memoir was not at all what I anticipated or hoped for. I was rooting for her to have come back to the table ready to own some of the obscene things she attempted. I do pity her and am glad she feels healed, but this was an opportunity for her that is beyond squandered. I honestly could go on… and on.. but need to move on. Better to stop wasting any more time on this person.

[Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

“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 cavaties 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.

PS: Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think her editors are trolling her. It’s almost impressive how little she’s learned from her “cancellation.”

[Lindsay Webb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Girl, what! Empty and tone deaf.

[Shelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/2 star

I almost never pan a memoir. Even if the writing doesn’t land for me, it’s someone’s lived experience, and I try to respect that. But If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die by Lee Tilghman (aka @leefromamerica) barely gets one star from me. Not because the writing is bad—it’s fine—but because the person at the center of it is, frankly, The Worst. I’ve never had a memoir make me recoil this way.

Read my full review @shellshocked here

[Derin K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a big fan of @Leefromamerica back in her heyday in the late 2010s. I loved her colorful Outdoor Voices leggings and artful Color Camp manicures, her seemingly carefree "LA Girl” lifestyle of going on hikes and making delicious smoothie bowls every day, her intentionality with regard to how she spent her time and energy. I stopped following her before her workshop price increase scandal that ended up getting her cancelled because it was all starting to grate on me a bit—a girl can only take so much fear-mongering about what is “healthy” and what is not. At some point, I just wanted to live without all this being thrown in my face. And then I got a suggested post from her a few weeks ago showing her and her new man, who ended up proposing to her a few weeks later, and I decided to follow her again because I’m a sucker for wedding planning content. It was at this time that I learned Lee wrote a memoir, and I was excited to listen to it and hopefully get some explanations for her unhinged behavior way back when.

When someone shares their story in a memoir, I never want to judge it by the choices they made or the people they are. It is, after all, a personal account of their lives, and Lee is incredibly vulnerable in telling her own story. Lee’s (very short) memoir recounts events not just from her influencing days but also from her tween life through high school and her early 20s, and while I was expecting her to get in-depth about what it’s like to be an influencer and what parts of it make it hard, what I learned is that Lee has made some bad decisions but doesn’t appear to have remorse for the damage she caused as an influencer. She explains how she got obsessed with social media, with growing her follower count, with being “healthy,” but recounting the challenges of posting 3x a day is *not* the same as acceptance of responsibility for one's role in promulgating the unhealthy side of “wellness" culture. I expected at least some reflection, but what Lee gave us was another attempt to rebrand herself. The way she went about telling her story told me nothing more than that she’s a walking contradiction: someone who wants a support system but who actively destroyed all relationships in her path; someone who pushed mental peace but who turned to drugs and destructive behavior any time she was alone with her own thoughts; someone who wanted fame and adoration but who couldn’t show up authentically even for herself. In the memoir, not only did Lee refuse to accept that she was literally encouraging disordered eating and a burn-out lifestyle in the name of becoming famous, but she also actively put the blame on everyone but herself. As the book wore on, this got worse—she blamed her parents, her sister, her ex-boyfriends, her ex-friends (the stories about how she lost every single friend she ever had should have gotten its own review for how much of a red flag it is), and the followers who gave her her entire career—for her downfall when it would have been obvious to everyone else that this downward spiral was attributable to one person: her. At one point, she disparaged a small business owner (someone who made non-toxic candles) who dropped Lee after her cancellation, and it was so hard to listen to. I finished the book because it was short (6 hours), but I wanted to give Lee a chance to explain herself. I wasn't expecting her to rationalize everything she did, because I know a lot of it was rooted in mental illness that Lee later worked on in therapy. But I was overall appalled at how skillfully she has put on blinders about who she has chosen to show up as in a public space. This is the kind of book that makes me realize humanity is not okay and people aren’t inherently good.

This review may have been longer than the book, but I had a lot of feelings when I finished and feel validated that I’m not alone in my thinking. I really do wish I had liked this. Just because I didn't doesn't mean anyone should die, though I do hope we continue to move away from a culture of external validation as a society.

[Udo O. · Rating 2 out of 5]

If You Don’t Like This I Will Die was certainly entertaining to read, but as someone who has followed Lee Tilghman’s rise, fall, and return since the “beginning,” it’s disappointing (albeit completely unsurprising) to continue to see her fail to take accountability for promoting disordered eating and the circumstances that led to her fallout. I can certainly empathize with the immense pressures of internet fame, the messiness of evolving in public, and the difficulty of confronting past harm. But it’s hard to fully enjoy or trust a narrative that sidesteps meaningful reflection on the damage caused, especially when so much of her legacy remains unresolved.

The book positions itself as candid and self-aware, and at moments it does succeed—Tilghman has an undeniable voice and a knack for weaving a compulsively readable story. However, much of what’s presented feels like carefully curated vulnerability: enough openness to feel raw, but never so much that it disrupts the author’s preferred framing. For longtime followers, the omissions stand out more than the revelations. The absence of a deeper reckoning with her role in shaping harmful wellness culture makes the memoir feel more like a rebrand than a reckoning.

As a piece of writing, it’s engaging. As an account of a figure whose influence touched—and in some cases harmed—so many, it leaves important questions unanswered. That tension makes the book compelling, but also frustrating: it’s a story that invites you in, but ultimately keeps the door half-closed.

[Aly Galgano · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lee is a grifter and she will never learn from her mistakes. Get off of the internet, stop influencing, get a real job. She is literally batshit insane and whoever let her publish this book is just as at fault as she is for writing it. But maybe that’s on me because look who read it?

[Jayme · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a @leefromamerica follower from back in the day, whoever edited this book did her a wild disservice. At the end of each chapter I thought, “Maybe she’ll get to the self reflection on the next page!” and every time I was wrong.

[amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

0 stars. i thought this was going to be a reflective look at the impact of influencer lifestyles, but it was just a personal memoir about things i did not need to know. not sure why i even finished this. 🤢

[Laura Duryea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow either her editor hates her or she just didn’t have one.

[Cali Hanson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want to start out by saying I don’t like rating people’s memoirs but oof, Lee. She starts the book by telling a story of a follower approaching her in public. She then describes the fan as “wearing leggings that made her thighs look too big”. Really just confirming any fear you might have to approach someone you’re a fan of in person. That is the tone of the entire book. The mentions of white privilege felt passive aggressive with no accountability or lessons learned. I do not recommend this book to anyone.

[Adrienne Blaine]

Giving Lee Tilghman’s book a star rating seems like perpetuating more of the parasocial internet-fueled idol worship/burning this book was born from. I liked @LeeFromAmerica and I like Lee Tilghman (what I know of her). And maybe for those reasons, reading this book gave me a lot of anxiety. It is confessional and doesn’t necessarily unpack experiences so much as it peels back the curtain for you to see what was happening behind the scenes and leading up to the performance. I would have liked more introspection, but we don’t always perfectly process our own lives. So I did my own reflecting on what it meant for me, as a reader and follower, to be confronted with a new story.

Lee From America was so influential in those early days of Instagram wellness culture that readers who weren’t followers may be surprised by how their own habits, aesthetics and ideas were shaped by this one woman show (to keep the theater metaphor going). Both on stage and off, Lee’s life was calibrated to extremes, whether that be in New York City’s drug-fueled party scenes or among Los Angeles’s Instagram-ready health influencers. Lee reports on this party girl to health obsessive pipeline and the early chapters reminded me of Down the Drain by Julia Fox.

Reading this book through a critical lens, I would demand more meditation on white supremacy in the wellness industry. The insecurities Lee feels when comparing herself to women who meet the ideals of whiteness (blonde, thin, Scandinavian, etc.) are worth unpacking. In the book, Lee admits to some of her failures in the area of social justice awareness, which is important, but sometimes this reads like placing herself outside the conversation, which none of us are. I hope Lee will continue to write honestly and critically as she processes her experiences. Up and coming influencers need more perspectives on the industry. I look forward to reading and/or following Lee Tilghman but hopefully in a constructive way.

I received a digital advance reader copy from Simon & Schuster via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kali Kushner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t a story of influencing. It is a story of how unresolved childhood trauma can affect your psyche well into adulthood. How having parents who don’t accept you, physically exert power over you to control you, and sexually shame you can affect you self esteem. I see this as a story of a young girl with poor self esteem who struggled to accept and love herself. Who tried, through drugs, drinking, disordered eating, men, and ultimately wellness- to either numb the pain, have some control, or get outside validation from strangers. I think Lee still has some deep trauma and healing to do, I hope she continues to heal and get better.

[Clementine · Rating 2 out of 5]

go on girl, give us nothing (no growth, no accountability, still engaging in the same types of behaviors online, etc.)

[Elsa · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a previously big LFA fan/follower, reading this book was awful to see how fake and hypocritical she was over the years. Also she seems to treat people horribly but not reflect on her actions at any point in this book.

In general I can’t say you can call this a memoir and I finished it but wouldn’t recommend it. Zero insights and just reaffirms that most influencers are liars and “all the world is a stage”.

[Candice · Rating 3 out of 5]

+ 1 star for the audiobook. Her captions needed to be read out loud. -1 star for how easily she slipped back into a being an influencer

[Steph Griffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shallow brain rot at its finest!

[Chris Landstrom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished this about two months ago but waited until having Hate Read Book Club™️ to write a review and then forgot.

Memoir from an OG IG health influencer / scammer who I originally heard on the Glowing Up podcast circa 2016/17 peddling completely wack lifestyle / diet / medical advice.

Absolutely no reflection involved in this memoir at all - just recounting events with a shocking disconnection from reality. I cannot believe her editors didn’t advise on how poorly she comes off in this (calling the police on her sisters birthday as a teenager because she wanted attention and even now being like ‘lol’ about it; saying she didn’t grow up well off but then also mentioning a country club membership, basically not taking any responsibility for anything morally questionable she ever did, etc.).

This book actually does have a lot of potential - what she went through at the beginning of the influencer economy is genuinely interesting - but lacks the growth or accountability to give it any kind of valuable perspective.

[kate Faehnle · Rating 2 out of 5]

WuHaus and Shut the Kale Up are going to be PTFOOOOOOO lol lol

She learned nothing but she wrote a book