I've lost too many patients in the last year. I love them, and I lose them and I feel like I keep losing little pieces of my soul. I don't know how long I can keep doing this. I tell myself my love for them matters, and my care matters even if they die, but I don't know if I still believe it.

That's how I opened my spiritual check-in this year. The rabbi nodded, and then said: "Read Tiny Beautiful Things." He handed me a copy to browse. "Can I borrow it?" I asked. "No, I need it too often." I found the advice perplexing and a little out of left field. But, sure, why not.

Reader, it was good advice. Very good advice. Cheryl Strayed knows bad things happen. She knows bad things happen to good people and we have to keep on living and loving, anyway. And she loves us all and calls us Sweet Pea when we're hurt or burning out. This is that book. I cried reading the letters about the ways in which the world was bad to people and was salved by Strayed's radical empathy. I've never read Dear Sugar. I don't know if these letters are representative. What I do know is through them, Strayed (ironically operating under a nom de plume) is not just radically empathetic, but also radically honest. She talks about her own life, her mom's death, the dissolution of her first marriage, the times that she couldn't be the person she wanted to be. She has a way of talking about herself as a means to make other people feel seen and more human.

Reading it was profoundly cathartic. I felt the protective shell I'd built up dissolving. I felt returned to the person I wanted to be. People came to me with the stories of the way the world had been bad to them and I felt ready again to be there with them, holding the badness, and then moving forward.

You can't borrow my copy. I'm going to need it too often. ( )

Stop. Put down whatever book you're reading and get this wise, funny, tart, and oh so true wonder by Cheryl Strayed. Yes, it's a book made up of the advice column pieces she wrote for an online mag. And it is SO SO much more. Part memoir, part kind companion for anyone alive and wondering how to move forward when relationships, feelings, and experiences just don't fit into neat little rows.

I love Strayed's approach and her writing voice. With deft wit and deep compassion she responds to the most varied letters and woes. I read the letter to which she will respond and wonder how it is she finds and catches the particular thread that matters most, then responds with honesty, warmth and encouragement that makes readers see themselves at their truest and still best. Shattering insight. Unrelenting hope.

I MUST have a personal copy. (I dog-eared and underlined a bit in this library copy.)

Recommending to every woman I know who appreciates a tender, slightly salty and stunning read.

Found quote gems in most every chapter. I included a juicy one in my most recent blog entry right here. ( )

Cringe worthy. I'm not sure how I finished this book. Maybe like a bad car crash I couldn't look away. Every time I heard (I listened to the audio) another sweet pea, darlin, honey bun, etc. I cringed even more.
There was a bit too much of sharing how horrible her life and upbringing were. While it's nice to have a relational experience to weave into the advice she gives, it just reached a point where it went too far.
As another reviewer said - first world problems (for the most part).

I'm debating whether or not to read her novel from years ago. This one and Wild just didn't do it for me. ( )

Not my cup of tea ( )

There was too much crass language in the first few pages to spend any further time reading it. Obviously a very worldly approach to life. ( )