Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future by Van Meter, Jonathan

"Citizen Kim is the kind of intelligent and incisive book that comes along when a great journalist finds his perfect subject. Irresistible." --Anna Wintour

An unprecedented and intimate account of one of the most business-savvy, influential, and defining icons of our time

Kim Kardashian is a self-made mogul, social media genius, fashion icon, and unlikely advocate for criminal justice reform. But she is also dismissed as a figure of scandal, spectacle, and reality television. The truth is more complicated--and revealing.

Stylish, incisive, and deeply reported, Citizen Kim is a portrait of a woman we think we know. Born into an Armenian American family in Beverly Hills and marked early by proximity to tragedy and notoriety, Kim's sense of ambition was evident from the start. She rose from Paris Hilton's sidekick to tabloid fixation, reality-television star, and ultimately, the luminary of a new celebrity economy--an ascent that reveals how precisely she understood the culture she would come to create in her image.

Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Kim and dozens of her closest friends, family members, and associates, the book is a symphonic portrait of a woman who comes sharply into focus as the major cultural currents of the past four decades--fame, technology, beauty, capital, family--take shape around her. Cutting through years of self-narration and relentless scrutiny, Jonathan Van Meter reveals a fascinating figure who has repeatedly transformed pressure and trauma into momentum. Equal parts cultural history, high-fashion chronicle, and intimate family study, Citizen Kim is a dazzling, whip-smart exploration of one of the most influential--and misunderstood--celebrities of our time, and the world that made her superstardom possible.

Author: Jonathan Van Meter
Publisher: Viking
Published: 10/27/2026
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780593300114

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2026
Booklist 10/01/2026

About the Author
Jonathan Van Meter is one of America's foremost magazine writers. A contributing editor at both Vogue and New York, Van Meter writes about Hollywood, media, fashion, society, and politics, and has profiled many of the most consequential figures in American public life. He is also the creator and founding editor in chief of Vibe, owned in partnership by Quincy Jones and Time Warner; executive producer of the documentary Let's Get Frank; and author of The Last Good Time.