Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

17 reviews

scvqa's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

“One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin, you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do."

“Did you know your sink was made in Argentina?” I asked when I was able to speak.
“Argentina?” he replied.
By way of answer, I reached up and ran my finger over the tiny sticker on the bottom of his sink that said Made in Argentina.” [...] That Made in Argentina sticker isn’t under the bathroom sink anymore. We don’t even live in the house with that bathroom sink. Before we moved out—years after we first became lovers—Mr. Sugar meticulously peeled the sticker off and with it he made me a card.
Made in Argentina it says on the front. Inside he wrote, “But it feels just like home.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Miscarriage, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Cursing

fran_bielar's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

I’m glad i read it. Some stories weren’t as impactful but some were really really moving. Every trigger warning possible for this book but it was a great collection of stories about people and their lives - specifically looking at the harder/darker sides of people. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

These are hard stories about the darker sides of people’s lives. They talk about their trauma and why they are the way they are. This is why there are so many trigger warnings. Not every story discusses each topic, but overall the book does touch on these issues.

clusterf_cked's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Drug use and Death of parent

clittleford3's review against another edition

hopeful inspiring reflective

2.5

One thing is certain: Cheryl Strayed can write! 

While I didn’t always agree with the advice and some of the topics were not ones I wanted to hear, she did an excellent job of making each response a story and drawing you in to her tale. Much of her advice is anecdotal. The style sitting somewhere between Jenny Lawson & Brenè Btown. 

There is quite a bit of sex and sexuality related content and many four letter words that start with F.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Rape, and Grief

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Toxic friendship

waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Love love love this book. It’s cliche, but it really did make me both laugh and cry. This memoir came to me at exactly the right time and place in my life. I only ever hold on to books I rate five stars, and this one has earned its place. Sugar/Cheryl kindly, lovingly, and patiently gives advice, which stems from stories from her own personal life. She is as vulnerable with her readers as her readers are with her. It feels like I’m reading a conversation between two friends.

There are two quotes towards the end of the memoir that I feel capture the essence of the advice Sugar/Cheryl gives:

“It was a becoming that I would not have dreamed was mine” (323)

“Your life will be a great and continous unfolding” (351).

I highly recommend this book. And if you like this one, then you will also love How to be a Person in the World by Heather Havrilesky/Ask Polly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Grief

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

nuuamuikkunen's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Death of parent

karo_g's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, and Alcohol

sreddous's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

It's so satisfying when you find an author who writes in a way that really clicks in your head. I love advice blogs like Dear Sugar and Captain Awkward and so I was eager to just grab a book format of Dear Sugar's columns.

I LOVE the way Sugar writes. The balance of sweet and gentle but also firm makes so much sense to me. There are some gorgeous, highly-quotable moments here. There are some heartbreaking stories. I felt gut-punched by a lot of these stories and questions. I believe Sugar knows just when to use long, flowery sentences and short, hard-hitting ones.

I see some other reviews saying that the advice doesn't work for them because a ton of these answers/columns involve Sugar telling her own stories as comparison -- this is a fair critique, but for me personally, it really really works. My brain likes to see a "similar yet different" story that also "tells the same moral/arrives at the same conclusion", so if your brain also works similarly, I definitely recommend this. But, I can see why Sugar's "here's a story that happened to me that's kinda relevant" format might not work for everyone. Still, it worked like heck for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Sexual assault

Moderate: Drug use and Emotional abuse

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

readbyroska's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

5.0

Read it if any of the following applies to you, and you can’t find your peace:

you’re feeling lost, hopeless, not good enough, deserving but unlucky, regretful, guilty, ashamed, disempowered, confused, heartbroken, lonely, isolated, alone, misunderstood, underachieving. 

Read if you are a partner, wife, husband, mother, father, boyfriend, girlfriend, daughter, son, child, friend, fuck buddy, teacher, student.

Read it if you don’t have anyone in your life who can love you and know you but still tell it to your straight. 

You will find something here for you, so sift through and find it.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Classism

fanchera's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Abortion