Jana, 39, ungeküsst

Jana Crämer is 39 years old and has never kissed a man, held hands with one, or been in a relationship. In this memoir she traces how she got here: a childhood marked by bullying, body shaming, and an eating disorder that shaped a deeply damaged self-image well into adulthood.

Rather than a redemption arc ending in romance, the book follows Crämer's slower, harder-won process of separating her self-worth from other people's validation, confronting single-shaming and body-shaming head-on, and arriving at a life she describes as genuinely happy, still unkissed. Crämer, named BookTok Author of the Year in 2023, writes in the direct, confessional voice familiar from her social media following.

It is a nonfiction account of resilience and self-acceptance rather than a dating memoir with a tidy ending.