Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered

Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark are the co-hosts of My Favorite Murder, a true-crime comedy podcast that launched in January 2016 and became one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Their book, structured around recurring catchphrases from the show, alternates between Karen's and Georgia's personal essays, each exploring how the themes they discuss on the podcast grew out of their own complicated lives.

Karen's introduction recounts how the podcast began. At a Halloween party in Los Angeles in 2015, Georgia, then a Cooking Channel host, and Karen, then a sitcom writer, discovered a shared obsession with the HBO true-crime docuseries The Staircase. They met for a long lunch, Georgia proposed a true-crime podcast, and Karen suggested the name My Favorite Murder. The show grew into hundreds of episodes, millions of listeners, sold-out international tours, and a devoted fan community called the Murderinos. Karen frames the book as an extension of that conversation, personal and imperfect by design.

The first chapter centers on "Fuck Politeness," a phrase the hosts use to encourage women to prioritize safety over social conditioning. Georgia traces her people-pleasing instincts to childhood in Orange County, California, where she watched her single mother adopt a subservient persona to attract men. At 16, she found confidence through the Riot Grrrl movement, a feminist offshoot of punk rock. At 19, that confidence was tested when a customer named Lawrence at the pancake restaurant where she waitressed asked to photograph her. Despite recognizing the request as a red flag, Georgia agreed. Lawrence drove her to a secluded mountaintop and asked her to remove her top; fear overrode her defiance, and she complied. She did not tell anyone for over 15 years. Therapy helped her reframe the experience: A grown man had pressured a teenager into a situation she could not safely refuse. She argues that "fuck politeness" is a lifelong practice, but insists that failing to exercise it does not make someone responsible for what happens to them.

Karen pays tribute to her mother, Patricia Kilgariff, who died on January 9, 2016, after 12 years with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Her mother was a psychiatric nurse who questioned authority, debated passionately, and never cared what others thought. Karen compares the long deterioration to living inside the movie Jaws: trapped watching a slow shark approach for years. Karen's sister Laura recounts a moment when their mother briefly returned to herself, grabbed Laura's arm, and said she loved both daughters. Karen frames her mother's life as a victory defined by tough love and a refusal to waste time pleasing others.

In the second chapter, "Sweet Baby Angel," Georgia credits Ray Bradbury with saving her from self-destruction. At 13, she progressed from cigarettes to methamphetamine and entered rehab before her 14th birthday. She briefly returned to using but quit after an eighth-grade English teacher gave her a copy of Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. She devoured his body of work, finding a vision of possibility that excited her about her future. At 16, she attended a Bradbury lecture at UCLA and gave him a heartfelt letter; he later mailed her a signed copy of Zen in the Art of Writing inscribed with "Onward!" She took this as permission to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. Karen's essay in this chapter redefines self-care as honest communication with a small circle of close friends and argues that therapy is essential.

The third chapter, "You're in a Cult, Call Your Dad," addresses destructive belief systems. Karen's therapist introduces the concept of concentric social circles, explaining that most people have only one to five true friends, which becomes the foundation of her "clutch-five" philosophy. She chronicles two personal "cults": the Cult of Booze, which led to hospitalization at 27 after she lied to a doctor about averaging eight drinks per night, and the Cult of Perfect, a lifelong obsession with physical flaws rooted in 1980s supermodel culture. Georgia's companion essay recounts her kleptomania phase at 13, driven by low self-esteem and resentment over her family's financial struggles. When she was caught shoplifting at a mall, she called her father, who came to the store, paid the fees, and later wrote to get the charges dismissed.

The fourth chapter, "Send 'Em Back," traces Georgia's true-crime obsession from watching Pet Sematary at 10 to discovering Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, a book about Ted Bundy. She describes meeting Karen at the 2015 Halloween party, bonding over shared morbid interests, and launching the podcast shortly after. Karen's essay recreates an afternoon of being a latchkey kid with her older sister Laura in the late 1970s, a comic set piece of sibling warfare, makeshift snacks, and mutual dependence.

In "Don't Be a Fucking Lunatic," Karen chronicles her history with alcohol and prescription diet pills. In 1996, after six months on prescription speed taken to lose weight for television, she skipped a sitcom rehearsal out of paranoia and was fired. She reflects on how addiction arrested her emotional development, leaving her with the relationship skills of a 15-year-old by the time she got sober at 27. Georgia's essay catalogues her therapy revelations, including her therapist Kim's observation that she "worships at the altar of doubt," a phrase capturing Georgia's defensive strategy of never expecting good outcomes to avoid disappointment.

"Get a Job" follows both women through their working lives. Karen describes flunking out of college at 20, deciding to become a stand-up comic, and enduring 14 years of struggle before landing her first television writing job. Georgia recounts retail and food-service positions before a viral cocktail video called the McNuggetini caught the attention of the Cooking Channel and launched her entertainment career.

In "Buy Your Own Shit," Georgia narrates her devastating first heartbreak at 19 with a man named Aiden, who hid a long-term girlfriend throughout their relationship. After months of grief, she saved her earnings and bought her own vintage Vespa, riding it through Los Angeles on empty Sunday mornings to reclaim her confidence through self-reliance. Karen's essay connects her experiences with materialism and the lesson that status symbols cannot address the real source of insecurity.

The final chapter, "Stay Out of the Forest," addresses the limits of personal safety advice. Georgia recounts childhood camping trips, including a terrifying night at the Grand Canyon when her brother Asher disappeared on a solo hike before returning hours later. Karen examines the case of the Scarborough Rapist, Paul Bernardo, whose attacks on women near bus stops in Toronto starting in 1987 prompted police to blame victims for riding buses at night. Karen dismantles this response, arguing that the rapist was making normal positions vulnerable. She acknowledges that listeners helped her and Georgia recognize their own safety advice could function as victim blaming and quotes an advocate who told them the world itself is the forest.

Georgia's conclusion reveals that both women were at low points when they started the podcast, and the show became a mutual life raft. She reflects on its unexpected success, the arrest of the Golden State Killer during the book's writing, and the Murderino community's impact, from pursuing careers in criminal justice to donating to organizations supporting survivors. She frames the podcast's legacy as built on vulnerability, imperfection, and genuine connection.