jennabeck13's review against another edition
5.0
Moderate: Alcoholism, Addiction, Body shaming, Misogyny, Sexism, Eating disorder, Hate crime, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Racism, Drug use, Lesbophobia, Police brutality, and Religious bigotry
kayfab's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Racism, Cultural appropriation, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Misogyny, Drug use, Body shaming, and Panic attacks/disorders
courtneys317's review
4.0
Minor: Alcohol, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Addiction, and Drug use
buffyali's review
3.75
Moderate: Mental illness, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Drug use, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Self harm, Sexism, and Drug abuse
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Racism
marisa_n's review against another edition
3.0
To be fair, it wasn't all bad. The author has clearly lived many different lives as she's worked to find herself. She's turned her story into a series of easily digestible anecdotes and life lessons. There were a few powerful reminders about self-love, romantic love, and parenting. There were some empowering messages about trusting your intuition, defining happiness for yourself, and challenging oppressive systems.
That said, the actual book itself was a mess. It was simultaneously overly formulaic and completely unorganized. Each chapter starts with a simple anecdote, has an a-ha!/ light bulb moment, and then ends with a life lesson to tie it all together. That said, the chapters were in no coherent order--neither chronologically or by theme. I'm convinced you could randomize the order of the chapters had have a fairly similar reading experience. It was incredibly frustrating to guess where you were chronologically. Moreover, the author was constantly learning a lesson, just to jump back in the timeline and re-learning the same lesson. It made the a-ha moment feel forced and insincere. Lastly, the strange order made the book feel incredibly repetitive, as no topic was given enough space within a single chapter to reach any depth.
The author should have put all the stories in chronological order. This would have helped clearly describe who she used to be, provide us a chance to root for her in her non-linear journey, and then display a character arc. Alternatively, she could have given a brief overview of her story in the introduction, then organized all the chapters (in chronological order!!) into sections organized by large themes, such as inner self, love, parenting, god/ religious institutions, community/activism. I think the messages could have been so much more powerful if she started describing her internal journey, and then how it changed her relationships with those of various proximity to her.
Overall, I think the book was fine. Perhaps I'm just not the target audience... This book might be written for women who are white, christian, politically moderate, mothers (who she used to be). To be fair, if she can reach those kinds of women and engage them on issues related to race, gender, sexual misogyny, etc., then that's a win in my book. That said, I have the feeling she's mostly preaching to the choir.
Graphic: Homophobia, Biphobia, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Gaslighting, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Racism, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Abortion, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Rape, Infidelity, Drug use, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Classism, Death, Fatphobia, Grief, and Gun violence
Spoiler
At one point, when she is expressing her repulsion at having sex with her husband, she is gaslit into being told to make it work. She describes having 'consensual' but emotionally manipulated sexual encounterscass5804's review against another edition
3.0
Moderate: Eating disorder and Drug use
chelsea_schultz's review against another edition
4.5
Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug use, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, and Mental illness
sunnivab's review against another edition
5.0
Moderate: Misogyny, Homophobia, Sexism, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Addiction, and Alcoholism
Minor: Miscarriage and Panic attacks/disorders
sarahmae531's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Eating disorder, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Infidelity
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Homophobia
juliej0715's review against another edition
4.25
The first 60 pages I didn't realize that this could be categorized as a self help book at all, I thought it was just a memoir that was realistic and funny about marriage and parenting and love and life.
The middle gets more self helpy, more of telling you what to do. And then she starts to have a bit of her own language to explain metaphors for things mentioned earlier in the book. But most of the time, the self help part is her just sharing what she did and her thoughts and experiences.
It can make you feel a LOT of feels. There were times I had to just end a chapter and stop reading so I could sit and contemplate for awhile.
That being said, the chapters are a very small, only a few pages, so that means you make progress in the book very quickly. I finished in a week! (Which is impossibly fast for me).
Overall, it was good and I would recommend it to people. It offered some interesting ideas and makes you realize some things about yourself.
She is a wonderful story teller. And her account of meeting Abby for the first time is the most romantic thing I've ever heard in my life. And they didn't even have to DO anything romantic, they just existed. It was exceedingly lovely.
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, and Grief