'How Should a Person Be?' by Sheila Heti Brutally honest and stylistically inventive, cerebral and sexy, this "novel from life" employs a grab bag of literary forms and narrative styles on its search for truth. With this deceptively simple question as her compass, Heti takes us on a meandering and entertaining exploration of the big questions, rousting aesthetic, moral, religious and ethical concerns most novels wouldn't touch. Emerging from a failed marriage, the novel's protagonist, Sheila - who one assumes is based on the author - finds herself unsure how to be in the world. The novel sparkles with invention, using e-mails, letters and transcripts from ostensibly recorded conversations to break up longer sections of prose. All the self-reflection and self-doubt, all the hanging out and hooking up, all the drinks and meals with friends, all these details contribute to a holistic portrait of our protagonist, as a thinker, lover, economic actor and member of a larger community. The novel doesn't pretend to answer its title question - how should a person be?