Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

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

26 reviews

tinyy's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

I think I desperately needed to hear this:

”There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

I definitely missed some trigger warnings but there were so many I can’t remember them. If I had known about them, I wouldn’t have read the book. It’s so heavy. Despite that, I know that it helped me a little bit, deal with some of the things that have happened to me.

amberlfaris's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

renreads2much's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

God its such a beautiful book. This is the kind of book I believe everyone should read at least once. Everyone can get SOMETHING out of it, whether big or small. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

These are all very brief depending on the submission. But It does not go into super deep detail, really just mentions these briefly or for the sake of context (if I'm remembering correctly.)

bookmarkedtbr's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

bootsmom3's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Dysphoria

hubes's review against another edition

reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Sexual assault

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Death of parent

novella42's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book has been my favorite book for the last ten years. It's a steadfast and heart-wrenching masterpiece. It's a collection of advice column responses unlike anything I have ever seen, because she doesn't hide behind the anonymity of the column but instead bares her soul in the most unexpected and vitally human ways. 
 

Strayed cusses eloquently and covers a wide number of topics with wit, humor, and deep compassion. She speaks openly about her childhood sexual abuse and a number of the letters have to do with sexual violence. She also helps readers address alcoholism, drug abuse, adultery, domestic violence, grief, miscarriage, and existential crises.

A friend who is a survivor showed me her copy on the night she shared her story with me, and said how much the book had meant to her. Since then I have read it many times at many different places in my mental health journey, but it may be too raw or intense for someone in the early stages of healing from trauma or dealing with active flashbacks/nightmares. 

It cracks me open every time, but also holds my hand as we put the pieces back together. I need to read it again soon.

The author-read audiobook is powerful. She's also quotable AF in any medium:

"The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that."

"Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it's one thing and one thing only: it's doing what you have to do."

"We like to think we're right about what we believe about ourselves and what we often believe are only the best, most moral things. We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be selfish assholes first."

"There is no why. You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding."

"I'll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore."

"Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

iamnita's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

5.0

This book was suggested by a friend, and I couldn't thank her more for the recommendation. It is told in a series of letters to the people writing in, and they describe issues they're dealing with and Dear Sugar responds. The responses are sometimes long-winded before you understand why that story was told, and that made it more endearing. I absolutely plowed through this book given that it reads quite fast, and the individual letters don't take too long before you want to read another. Just a gem. A definite to have on the shelf and flip through from time to time.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Toxic friendship

smoladeryn's review against another edition

dark emotional funny medium-paced

5.0

“Acceptance is a small, quiet room” p352

Content Warning: abuse

I don’t read “self help” I thought as I grabbed this from a shelf on the way out of my beautiful home that I didn’t want to leave. I was fleeing an abusive relationship of 16 years when this book jumped out at me—no doubt given by his mother that he never read—like so many books of this kind. 

I don’t know why I took it. I hadn’t been able to read much in 8 years-- the second half of our relationship. I also really didn’t read “self help” or even memoirs. I never read Sugar’s column, although I did read TheRumpus, I didn’t know that’s where it came from at the time. 

I  saw the ugly orange cover, read the title that seemed so overwrought (honestly), and picked it up in my already much too full hands with my cat and as many “important” possessions as I could take. 

I was terrified that day and I was terrified for weeks, months still. I was homeless for 2 months, but not the kind of homelessness I experienced in my early 20s. It was the kind where I had to stay in a horror story air bnb, a hotel, and then a dank and noisy basement I paid way too much for. 

In each place I unpacked this book and put it next to where I slept. I didn’t read it. When I got to my noisy and deeply lonely new rental apartment in the heart of downtown, I put it next to my pillow and didn’t read it. 

One day about 4 months into this “new life”, after the homeless period, I started reading it. 

I’ve wept at nearly every letter. Before I started reading this collection, that no doubt my ex-mother-in-law gave to her stubborn and abusive son that refuses to look inward, she picked a fight with me. The details aren’t important, but she said some of the most hurtful and painful things anyone has ever said, even more so than my own horribly abusive family. 

I don’t know if I finally read this out of stubbornness (spite?) myself but all I know is Tiny Beautiful Things is the thing that started my healing. I’m still healing.

There were times I didn’t read this book, and times I devoured 3 letters at once. There were times I had to process a letter for what seemed like an eternity before I could bare to pick up the weight of it again. Then, there were times where this book sat in a bag on my back, light as a feather, and as warm as a familiar friend. 

Tiny Beautiful Things is one of those Things itself. The phrase comes from the description of a sweet purple balloon. It might not be the sweet balloon Sugar describes, but there are times where it is. And she is right—it is something we all deserve.  

I kept a journal of endless quotes. I was going to post them as a review which is what I usually do, but those quotes are important mostly to me, probably. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Cancer, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Dementia, Grief, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Dysphoria

becksusername's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

A book I needed

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship