Kardashian explained the reasoning of including the pictures: "I wasn't intending to put these in the book but saw them online during the iCloud hack.

[12] Kat Brown of The Telegraph described the book as "unexpectedly revealing" and "oddly moving", also adding that "by the time you get to her photobombing another friend mid-selfie [...] or making faces with her family [...], you think that she'd actually be quite a laugh to go out with".

[15] Gregory Babcock, a writer for the Complex magazine, wrote a very positive review of the book, and said: "Selfish reveals that what may seem insipid and overblown initially is actually a far smarter, more calculated window into the life and times of one of our culture’s most relevant public figures through the simple, albeit absurd, art of documenting herself.

"[16] Jillian Mapes of Flavorwire commented that the book "occupies a place somewhere between a Marina Abramović stunt and your Facebook friend who splices together brief video clips every day for year".

[17] Sarah Begley, writing for Time, appreciated Kardashian giving credit to her make-up artists and stylists in the captions under the pictures.

Bennett further accentuated the book's format, and said: "You could call Selfish a sneakily feminist document, an act of reclamation by one of the world's most photographed women".

Bourne also noted that the book "takes a lot of cues" from other photobooks such as Sex featuring shots of Madonna by Fabien Baron or Kate Moss' portrait collection composed by Mario Testino.

[20] Haley Mlotek from the National Post called the book "a welcome reprieve" and noted that "the images collected in Selfish will be a crucial part of how we know and understand Kardashian West as a person, a public figure, and a global phenomenon".

[21] Writing for The Guardian, Jonathan Jones wrote that the photobook is "the ultimate slap in the face for anyone who ever pointed a camera with high hopes of being the new Henri Cartier-Bresson or Don McCullin" and suggested that "Kardashian’s selfie-taking is, in reality, a sustained act of self-exploitation in which she sells herself as commodified, leered-at flesh.