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jonapelson's review against another edition
3.0
Leaning 2.5 stars and a DNF at 25%
Both of those things might not be the book's fault. I can no longer remember how this ended up on my to read list and I did not know it was a collection of "ask Polly" letters. Whoops! Regardless, I found the letter writers' problems tedious (I know advice columns are a wee bit frivolous but this was one first world problem after the other) and the advice became redundant when the letters followed each other. Love troubles? Make sure you remember you're great! Family drama at your wedding? Tell yourself you're great and no one can steal your day. Adrift in your career? You are your best asset! And on and on.
Both of those things might not be the book's fault. I can no longer remember how this ended up on my to read list and I did not know it was a collection of "ask Polly" letters. Whoops! Regardless, I found the letter writers' problems tedious (I know advice columns are a wee bit frivolous but this was one first world problem after the other) and the advice became redundant when the letters followed each other. Love troubles? Make sure you remember you're great! Family drama at your wedding? Tell yourself you're great and no one can steal your day. Adrift in your career? You are your best asset! And on and on.
balletbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
Not quite as awesome as Tiny Beautiful Things (I <3 Cheryl Strayed) but definitely a solid collection of advice columns from Ask Polly. (And I do hope the people who wrote in basically asking for permission to cheat on their partners got dumped. What tools)
ifjanetranit's review against another edition
4.0
I love a great advice column. If the advice-giver says fuck a lot, even better.
nssutton's review against another edition
4.0
I liked this as I liked the collection of Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar columns, because I appreciate those who translate their past into someone else's present, because all I ever want to do is advise and correct. I wish I had read this in my 20s, when I was so hard on myself, so insistent on seeing patterns that blinded me from the things really happening, so rigid in my thinking. But I wouldn't have appreciated it as I do in my early 30s, with disappointments and joys I couldn't have imagined then. Sometimes I think of starting a list of books I want the girls to read, in case anything happens to me, or in case they won't turn to me in a time of need, but both thoughts are so morbid I can't stand it. This would be on that list for sure.
rohand0's review against another edition
3.0
Heather writes with compassion and caring but without the same weight as other advice columnists. Something about the writing style and the advice just threw me off that I couldn't tell what it was. There was some interesting pieces in the columns though I admit that some threw me off entirely. Specifically her thing about Kayne West. The entire book seems like a woman who just continues to give the same basic advice:
- Go for every dream you want!
- Love yourself
- Don't hang around people who suck.
- Go for every dream you want!
- Love yourself
- Don't hang around people who suck.
tracey_stewart's review against another edition
"Who do I think I am, giving other people advice?" I thought. "I’m not qualified for this! I don’t have it all figured out. What the hell am I doing?"
I was so glad to read that. Because it's going to be the first thought that comes to mind: who are you to tell others how to live their lives? (It was also a pretty funny callback to Admiral Stockdale.)
Who Heather Havrilesky (Dear Polly) is, is someone who has clear vision and isn't afraid to use it, and who has strong opinions and isn't afraid to wield them.
My enjoyment of this book was certainly not injured by the fact that I agreed with a great deal of what she had to say. Example: there's nothing wrong in a life lived without a Significant Other.
(But controlling your brain is not exactly easy. You have to train yourself to romanticize a life outside of men and create a tapestry that’s just as rich without a guy in it. That requires a kind of buoyant solitude that isn’t easy to achieve.
A few things that will make your alone time more buoyant: Inspiring music. A clean space. Regular, vigorous exercise. Great books. A nice bath. A wide range of beverages in the fridge. Friendly pets. Engrossing home projects. Your setting matters! )
I especially loved "Dear Polly, I am trying to figure out how to be less nice. I don’t want to be less generous or less kind, just less nice. You know what I mean—that craven, smiley, oh-gosh-no-of-course-go-ahead-of-me, laughing-at-every-unfunny-joke …veneer. It degrades my life. It has always degraded my life. I am only now starting to understand how much. I’m mad about it." It echoed what I've experienced. I was brought up to be nice – pretend to take no notice of the huge bubo growing out of someone's nose; always give way when someone's barreling toward you; always hold the door for others, regardless of gender… and I've gotten tired of others feeling free to comment on my equivalents of buboes and never giving way to me and dropping doors in my face. I still can't bring myself to be like that – I don't really want to become that – but there are days, and shopping trips, where I'm determined not to #%&! budge.
I like Dear Polly's positivity: "But sometimes you have to let go of your shiny imaginary creations in order to give in to the magic of the real world, which is far more glorious and full of hope than it first appears." She actually does a nice job of counteracting some of the nonsense I have to live with at work. I'm an introvert who can't understand why someone would bellow across an office to the person farthest away from her rather than just picking up the phone and calling that person's extension, or why someone would put the office radio on (loud) and then also put on music on her own computer – but I'm told that everyone else in the office just tunes these things out, and no one is going to do anything about it. (On the bright side, I'm allowed to wear headphones to drown the never-ending babble out, and thus my audiobooks-read count has skyrocketed.) I am an introvert who would genuinely rather stay at home with a book than go to a party, who genuinely preferred to stay in the office and work that day that the office sponsored a field trip to the bowling alley (the quiet was exquisite)… I'm made every day to feel that I'm weird and wrong and need "help" because I don't particularly want to hear the endless inane chatter of my coworkers.
"It’s okay to be an oversensitive freak. Oversensitive freaks tend to overreact. They tend to spin in circles. But they are some of the most loyal, interesting, intense people around, and they just get better as they age. Welcome to the tribe!"
I don’t need to be validated by a woman I've never met. But it's a little like watching Wil Wheaton and Chris Hardwick become more and more successful: these are guys turning their geekiness (their Nerdist tendencies, if you will) into careers, and doing quite well, from what I can see. It's not necessary to my life for them to show that it's "okay" to love things, to be enthusiastic about things – but it is nice.
And the author loves "So You Think You Can Dance." Bonus points.
It is funny, though, that in at least one response she promises the letter-writer that there is absolutely someone out there who is her perfect romantic partner. "Believe that you deserve it, you deserve to be loved. It’s all going to work out just fine." I find that mildly offensive, and I know it is patently untrue. Not the deserving part – the just fine part. I believe I deserve a lot of things – freedom from worry about money, a job in the arts, friends who love Star Trek and Firefly and so on, et cetera et cetera. That doesn't mean I'll ever get any of it. And believing I deserve it doesn't make me feel any better about reality.
It's also funny that one exchange pretty much nails something that happened with an old friend earlier this year.
Eventually, I figured it out; she always assumed my anger and frustration were about her, that I was angry at her, and not just lonely or depressed. Sure, I wrote her letters. I ranted and I raged. But that only confirmed her suspicion that I was unstable. What worked was saying, "I am in a shitty mood this morning. It’s not about you, so don’t think that it is, okay? I love you. Just be patient with me." And once I could say that to her, and she could hear me, it changed everything.
Yeah. Real life – not like that.
"She’ll either come around or she won’t, but if you really care, don’t give up." – No. At a certain point, persisting in trying to maintain a relationship the other person has flushed away is just pointless and serves only to keep old wounds open. And to annoy the other person. Like trying to teach a pig to sing.
Now the women I admire the most are women who never pretend to be different than they are. Women like that express their anger. They admit when they’re down. They don’t beat themselves up over their bad moods. They allow themselves to be grumpy sometimes. They grant themselves the right to be grouchy, or to say nothing, or to decline your offer without a lengthy explanation.
Again, this ≠ real life.
This sort of pep talk is not, in the end, all that helpful, I don't think. In the short term, it's great – "You're right! You're great! It'll all be just fine!" In the longer term, though, doesn't it just make matters worse? "But … I was promised that it would all be just fine! Why isn't it? Does everyone else in the world make it to just fine and it's only me that's miserable?"
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
I was so glad to read that. Because it's going to be the first thought that comes to mind: who are you to tell others how to live their lives? (It was also a pretty funny callback to Admiral Stockdale.)
Who Heather Havrilesky (Dear Polly) is, is someone who has clear vision and isn't afraid to use it, and who has strong opinions and isn't afraid to wield them.
My enjoyment of this book was certainly not injured by the fact that I agreed with a great deal of what she had to say. Example: there's nothing wrong in a life lived without a Significant Other.
(But controlling your brain is not exactly easy. You have to train yourself to romanticize a life outside of men and create a tapestry that’s just as rich without a guy in it. That requires a kind of buoyant solitude that isn’t easy to achieve.
A few things that will make your alone time more buoyant: Inspiring music. A clean space. Regular, vigorous exercise. Great books. A nice bath. A wide range of beverages in the fridge. Friendly pets. Engrossing home projects. Your setting matters! )
I especially loved "Dear Polly, I am trying to figure out how to be less nice. I don’t want to be less generous or less kind, just less nice. You know what I mean—that craven, smiley, oh-gosh-no-of-course-go-ahead-of-me, laughing-at-every-unfunny-joke …veneer. It degrades my life. It has always degraded my life. I am only now starting to understand how much. I’m mad about it." It echoed what I've experienced. I was brought up to be nice – pretend to take no notice of the huge bubo growing out of someone's nose; always give way when someone's barreling toward you; always hold the door for others, regardless of gender… and I've gotten tired of others feeling free to comment on my equivalents of buboes and never giving way to me and dropping doors in my face. I still can't bring myself to be like that – I don't really want to become that – but there are days, and shopping trips, where I'm determined not to #%&! budge.
I like Dear Polly's positivity: "But sometimes you have to let go of your shiny imaginary creations in order to give in to the magic of the real world, which is far more glorious and full of hope than it first appears." She actually does a nice job of counteracting some of the nonsense I have to live with at work. I'm an introvert who can't understand why someone would bellow across an office to the person farthest away from her rather than just picking up the phone and calling that person's extension, or why someone would put the office radio on (loud) and then also put on music on her own computer – but I'm told that everyone else in the office just tunes these things out, and no one is going to do anything about it. (On the bright side, I'm allowed to wear headphones to drown the never-ending babble out, and thus my audiobooks-read count has skyrocketed.) I am an introvert who would genuinely rather stay at home with a book than go to a party, who genuinely preferred to stay in the office and work that day that the office sponsored a field trip to the bowling alley (the quiet was exquisite)… I'm made every day to feel that I'm weird and wrong and need "help" because I don't particularly want to hear the endless inane chatter of my coworkers.
"It’s okay to be an oversensitive freak. Oversensitive freaks tend to overreact. They tend to spin in circles. But they are some of the most loyal, interesting, intense people around, and they just get better as they age. Welcome to the tribe!"
I don’t need to be validated by a woman I've never met. But it's a little like watching Wil Wheaton and Chris Hardwick become more and more successful: these are guys turning their geekiness (their Nerdist tendencies, if you will) into careers, and doing quite well, from what I can see. It's not necessary to my life for them to show that it's "okay" to love things, to be enthusiastic about things – but it is nice.
And the author loves "So You Think You Can Dance." Bonus points.
It is funny, though, that in at least one response she promises the letter-writer that there is absolutely someone out there who is her perfect romantic partner. "Believe that you deserve it, you deserve to be loved. It’s all going to work out just fine." I find that mildly offensive, and I know it is patently untrue. Not the deserving part – the just fine part. I believe I deserve a lot of things – freedom from worry about money, a job in the arts, friends who love Star Trek and Firefly and so on, et cetera et cetera. That doesn't mean I'll ever get any of it. And believing I deserve it doesn't make me feel any better about reality.
It's also funny that one exchange pretty much nails something that happened with an old friend earlier this year.
Eventually, I figured it out; she always assumed my anger and frustration were about her, that I was angry at her, and not just lonely or depressed. Sure, I wrote her letters. I ranted and I raged. But that only confirmed her suspicion that I was unstable. What worked was saying, "I am in a shitty mood this morning. It’s not about you, so don’t think that it is, okay? I love you. Just be patient with me." And once I could say that to her, and she could hear me, it changed everything.
Yeah. Real life – not like that.
"She’ll either come around or she won’t, but if you really care, don’t give up." – No. At a certain point, persisting in trying to maintain a relationship the other person has flushed away is just pointless and serves only to keep old wounds open. And to annoy the other person. Like trying to teach a pig to sing.
Now the women I admire the most are women who never pretend to be different than they are. Women like that express their anger. They admit when they’re down. They don’t beat themselves up over their bad moods. They allow themselves to be grumpy sometimes. They grant themselves the right to be grouchy, or to say nothing, or to decline your offer without a lengthy explanation.
Again, this ≠ real life.
This sort of pep talk is not, in the end, all that helpful, I don't think. In the short term, it's great – "You're right! You're great! It'll all be just fine!" In the longer term, though, doesn't it just make matters worse? "But … I was promised that it would all be just fine! Why isn't it? Does everyone else in the world make it to just fine and it's only me that's miserable?"
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
carolynaugustyn's review against another edition
3.0
I usually enjoy advice essay based books but I didn't really dig this one as much. Some of the answers/essays really spoke to me and I found the words to be spot on and touching. Some of the advice I didn't enjoy or didn't relate to or just simply didn't care about. I felt bad but I found myself thinking "Really, that's your biggest issue?" and I HATED feeling that way. But something about some of the pieces rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't find myself enjoying the full journey. There were absolutely some moments of greatness in here but not enough for me to really love this collection.
niniane's review against another edition
3.0
The prose is good, and the writer includes some of her own anecdotes. But I have quickly forgotten most of it.
dcmr's review against another edition
3.0
Not for me. I think this book is bold and frank, but geared to a younger demographic (20-30 yrs).