THE ACCLAIMED MEMOIR ABOUT finding your way home
What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you’re a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are?
When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of over a hundred children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year study of personality development that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in what she feels is an abusive marriage and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped her identity and life choices. Already a successful journalist, she makes her own curious history the subject of her next investigation. From experiment rooms with one-way mirrors, to children’s puzzles with no solutions, to condemned basement laboratories, her life-changing journey uncovers the long-buried secrets hidden behind the renowned study. The question at the gnarled heart of her quest: Did the study know her better than she knew herself?
At once bravely honest and sharply witty, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment is a compelling and provocative account of a woman’s quest to find her true self, and an unblinking exploration of why we turn out as we do. Few people in all of history have been studied from such a young age and for as long as this author, but the message of her book is universal. In an era when so many of us are looking to technology to tell us who to be, it’s up to us to discover who we actually are.
What People Are Saying about data baby
“April 2024 Pick: Data Baby” — The Morbidly Curious Book Club
“December 2023 Pick: Data Baby” — Emma Roberts’ Belletrist book club
“How One Woman Tracked the Researchers Who Tracked Her for Decades” — The New York Post
“The Top 50 Psychology Books of 2023” — Next Big Idea Club
“If, as Socrates contended, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ then Breslin is living hers to the fullest. Lucky for us, she’s written a thought-provoking, ridiculously propulsive book about it.” — The Globe and Mail
“Fascinating. […] Unpacking thorny questions about determinism and the ethics of human experimentation, Breslin attacks her subject with verve and wit, resisting woe-is-me solipsism without defanging her critiques of the study that rocked her life. It’s gripping stuff.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“As she examines the dark side of experimentation on human subjects, Breslin also asks disturbing questions about the consequences modern data-gathering will have on future generations. An intelligently provocative memoir and investigation.” — Kirkus Reviews
“A thought-provoking commentary on the modern reality of constant surveillance and the ways in which our lives and choices are influenced by those who observe us, wielding power through the information they gather.” — Cybernews
“Data Baby is the riveting story of a long-term psychological study and its impact on Breslin’s life, a compelling story in itself. An utterly fascinating read.” — Elizabeth Crane, author of This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After
“Breslin's compelling memoir reminds us that psych data are made of people. Data Baby also brilliantly highlights how the making of data shapes the stories of the people being observed.” — danah boyd, author of It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens
“Intriguing. […] Her story serves as a curious thought experiment that poses interesting questions.” — Five Books
“Susannah Breslin was indeed a data baby — twice, even. And her second time, she flaunts the role, resisting its implications and asserting her own control over it.” — Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism
“The Best Memoirs By Women Still to Come in 2023” — Glamour
“Zibby’s Most Anticipated Reads for October, November & December” — Zibby Mag
“11 New Books for November” — Alta Journal
“A fascinating reported memoir” — The Art of Noticing
“Really, really interesting” — Book Riot
“Susannah Breslin speaks from the point of view of a human lab rat.” — Library Journal
“Great Reads for 2023: Best Biography in 2023” — Raemona Magazine
“28 Most Anticipated New November 2023 Book Releases by Genre” — Beyond the Bookends
“Grapples with questions of nature and nurture, predetermination and free will, viewed through the lens of her lifelong participation in the Block Project’s personality study.” — BookNet
Interviews About Data Baby
“‘I Hate the Subject and the Subject Hates Me’: An Interview with Susannah Breslin” — Air/Light
“Spending 30 Years in a Psychological Study Warped Journalist Susannah Breslin's Life” — ABC News (Australia)
“Being a Human Lab Rat for 30 Years: What Happens Next” — ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind
“Discovering Your True Identity” — NPR’s The Pulse
“Growing Up in a Decades-long Psychological Experiment” — CBC Radio’s The Current
“Secrets Laid Bare: An Interview with Susannah Breslin, Author of Data Baby” — Identity Theory
“Susannah Breslin, DATA BABY: My Life in a Psychological Experiment” — Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books
“Author and Journalist Susannah Breslin On Her New Book ‘Data Baby’” — Daily Blast Live
“Susannah Breslin” — Otherppl with Brad Listi
“Instagram Live Discussion with Emma Roberts, Karah Preiss, and Susannah Breslin, Author of Data Baby” — Belletrist
“In ‘Data Baby,’ Journalist Susannah Breslin Turns the Spotlight on Herself” — Shondaland
More From the Author of Data Baby
“I Spent My Childhood as a Guinea Pig for Science. It Was … Great?” — Slate
“Lessons Learned From Growing Up as a Test Subject” — Next Big Idea Club
“International Women in Media Foundation Instagram Stories Takeover” — IWMF
“I Am Anxious… Susannah Breslin” — Anxious Dude
“STACKED” — Belletrist
“BRIEF” — Belletrist
Readings & events for Data Baby
April 27, 2024 @ 11 am: “Susannah Breslin - Data Baby : My Life in a Psychological Experiment (Corte Madera Store),” Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA
April 23, 2024 @ 1 pm: “‘Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment’ Brown Bag Book Talk with Author Susannah Breslin,” Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
April 21, 2024 @ 3:30 pm: “Women and Bodies: Science Meets Sociology,” The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
March 27, 2024 @ 6:30 pm: “Author Talk with Susannah Breslin,” Berkeley Public Library - North Branch, Berkeley, CA
November 15, 2023 @ 7 pm: “Susannah Breslin Discusses ‘Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment’,” Book Soup, Los Angeles, CA
Data Baby in the News
“April 2024 Author Events” — Local News Matters
“Book Club Picks for December 2023” — Publishers Weekly
“What We’re Reading” — Bloomberg’s Prognosis newsletter
“Books to Give as Gifts” — KATU / ABC
“Through a Glass Darkly” — Cybernews podcast
DATA BABY connect
Contact the author for interview requests and speaking engagements
Listen to an excerpt from the audio book read by Cassandra Campbell
Buy a signed hardcover copy of the book on Gumroad
Literary agent: Mollie Glick, Creative Artists Agency
Film / TV agent: Michelle Kroes, Creative Artists Agency
International rights: Sarah Harvey, Creative Artists Agency
Data Baby on social media
“Timely and thought-provoking, making it a must-read for anyone fascinated by the human psyche and our modern world.” — Alexandria Brown
“Incredibly readable, relatable, and hits all the high notes of a book that will stick with you long after you have read it.” — Ashlee Hollingsworth
“It’s kinda Truman Show-esque without the consistency of the cameras, paid actors and product placement.” — Dishing on Books
“Breslin really draws the reader into her life as she recounts her experiences with honesty and vulnerability.” — Shelby Ivie
“⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The writing — phenomenal. Easy to read, yet absolutely delicious with detail.” — Barb Star
“A fantastic memoir full of wry philosophy and relentless humor about what it's like to be in a psychological study that lasted 30 years.” — Lydia Netzer
“I was never part of a psychological study, yet now, after reading this book, I kind of feel like I was.” — I Need to Read
