How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously

How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously is a personal development and humor book by Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo. Originally published in 2025 by Simon & Schuster, How to Giggle takes its inspiration from Berner and DeSorbo’s hit podcast Giggly Squad. Like the best friends and co-hosts’ podcast, How to Giggle offers women practical advice on how to care for their bodies, make lasting connections, and achieve seemingly impossible dreams. Berner and DeSorbo’s first-person points of view and personal experience in the entertainment industry ground their advice and lend the text a humorous tone. Key takeaways include:

• Decenter Men to Focus on Personal Growth
• Embrace Delusion to Pursue Your Dreams
• Prioritize Healthy Relationships
• See the Humor in Life
• Be True to Yourself

This guide is based on the 2025 Simon & Schuster hardback edition of the text.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of cursing, sexual content, mental illness, gender discrimination, and emotional abuse.

Language Note: The source material uses the terms “delusion” and “delusional” figuratively to describe ideas and aspirations that seem impossible; this guide replicates this terminology while summarizing and discussing the text. 

Summary

In How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously, actresses, comedians, and podcasters Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo describe their journeys toward finding success and happiness. They use their personal experience in the corporate business world and entertainment industry as the foundation for their advice to women. When Berner and DeSorbo finished college, they weren’t sure what their lives would look like. However, they discovered that as soon as they started taking risks and facing their fears, surprising opportunities opened for them. They suggest that their fearlessness was a form of delusional thinking and that women who feel anxious about taking risks should be more “delusional” to free themselves from others’ limiting expectations. This has been true for Berner and DeSorbo. They met each other by chance and even started their hit podcast Giggly Squad somewhat unintentionally.

Other lessons that Berner and DeSorbo have learned from their time in the entertainment industry are to treat life like a series of bits, to pay attention to red flags in relationships, to experiment with personal style, self-care routines, and exercise, and to be honest with oneself about what one needs. Contemporary American culture pressures women to define their worth via their relationships with men. Women are also conditioned to put themselves second, to cower in the face of vocational conflicts, and to silence their voices, opinions, and desires. Berner and DeSorbo talk back to these gender stereotypes and urge women to empower themselves. Life is full of constant difficulties, but if women let themselves relax, laugh, and prioritize relationships that support their authentic selves, they will be able to experience joy in new ways. The book as a whole offers women in their twenties and thirties practical advice for navigating contemporary culture and getting what they want while having fun along the way.