This is not dating advice; it is a dating reality check.

As a single woman who has just turned thirty – and who penned the wildly viral article ‘Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?’ – Chanté Joseph is extremely familiar with our current dating culture, steeped as it is in messy situationships, choice paralysis and the gamification of dating apps.

Longing for the real deal amidst what researchers are calling a 'Relationship Recession' is not for the faint of heart. But instead of settling or falling for pernicious narratives about somehow being unworthy of love, Chanté advocates being picky. Once considered an insult, she believes being picky is actually a form of power, a declaration that you won’t compromise on the life you want.

Picky isn’t another book advising people on how to date or what to look for in a partner. Moving between cultural criticism, feminist theory and her own misadventures in love, Chanté deconstructs cultural myths about romance and unpacks the sinister ways society responds to women’s singledom, including pronatalist agendas, the manosphere and femcel culture. In Picky, Chanté explores the way women are blamed for their singleness – and often for men’s – while navigating a dating culture that is emotionally precarious and structurally unequal. It deconstructs the narratives we absorb about romance, desirability and worth, and asks what it might mean to step away altogether from shame-based ideas of love.

In her singular whip-smart style, Chanté turns over the narratives that no longer serve us, interrogates the harmful myths than perpetuate negative dating experiences and serves us with an urgent alternative option: stay picky.