--- title: I Do Everything I'm Told: 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 description: Find out why "I Do Everything I'm Told" by Megan Fernandes is on TIME's list of the must-read books of the year. canonical: https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332613/i-do-everything-im-told/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-11-14T12:30:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-03T00:25:35.521Z og:title: 'I Do Everything I'm Told' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 og:description: Here's why it made the list og:url: https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332613/i-do-everything-im-told/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4165eeb3adbc1a36/698a4201e6e84a6aae2b0aa6/IDoEverythingImTold.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 'I Do Everything I'm Told' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'I Do Everything I'm Told' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 twitter:description: Here's why it made the list twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4165eeb3adbc1a36/698a4201e6e84a6aae2b0aa6/IDoEverythingImTold.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 14, 2023 # I Do Everything I'm Told by Megan Fernandes by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff  In “Orlando,” an entry in Megan Fernandes’ stirring third poetry collection, she writes that poems give “form to the formless,” capturing the essence of her book. Split into four sections, the poems in _I Do Everything I’m Told_ give words to unnamable desires and mysterious obsessions, telling stories that span the world and beyond, from Shanghai locker rooms to a freezing Rockaway Beach to Saturn’s rings. The speaker of the poems is wrestling with life, and with interpersonal relationships and connections to everything else. With striking clarity in her language and an attentiveness to the beauty of contradictions, Fernandes creates a work that is less a balm than it is a wallop to the senses, jarring the reader awake. —_Mahita Gajanan_ **Buy Now:** _I Do Everything I’m Told_on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9781953534880) | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/463PGMn) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332613/i-do-everything-im-told/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332613/i-do-everything-im-told/"},"headline":"I Do Everything I'm Told","datePublished":"2023-11-14T12:30:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:25:35.521Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332613/i-do-everything-im-told/","keywords":["Books","list","best books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4165eeb3adbc1a36/698a4201e6e84a6aae2b0aa6/IDoEverythingImTold.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4165eeb3adbc1a36/698a4201e6e84a6aae2b0aa6/IDoEverythingImTold.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332613/i-do-everything-im-told/","name":"I Do Everything I'm Told"}}]}] ```