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wanderaven's review
4.0
The synopsis here uses hysterical twice in such a relatively brief entry and, based on having just finished the book, it doth protest too much.
Please don't misunderstand me - I liked this book quite a lot and there were moments I found some good laughs, though comparisons to Jenny Lawson are definitely taking it too far.
Look, this is a memoir about some damn difficult times in Purmort's life, and the promotions about it being "hysterical" fall flat and manufactured to me. I didn't find it "hysterical" and for such an account, I didn't want to. I'm not sure what brought me to this memoir and why I prioritized it above so much I have on my plate right now, though having gone through a (somewhat) similar experience certainly didn't hurt.
I didn't find those purported hysterics (though, again, some wry and cringing laughs, for certain), but I did find what I was actually looking for in the book; a person who is honest about experiences like this, and with whom I found a kinship and empathy.
"Some people have real and serious problems and should absolutely see a medical professional and maybe even take drugs. And maybe I should, but really, I think that I spent twenty-eight years as a person who didn't know how to live, who didn't know that happiness is isn't something that is handed to you, but something you have a hand in making, every day. It is harder than just getting up and grinding beans and brewing coffee, but it is just as ritualistic."
"'You just have to keep fighting.' 'Yeah? I mean, cancer isn't much of a fight for some people. There are some where treatment is basically you just standing there while the Mike Tyson of cancers sucker-punches you over and over again. This is hard stuff, and a person can only take so much. When it's clear that it's time to call it, that's okay, too.'"
"There's a school of thought around this, I find out (shout out to Google for giving me a PhD in Everything). There is clean pain, what actually happens to you (e.g. your husband dies, tragically) and then there is the dirty pain, the kind you give yourself. The negative feelings (I'm a terrible person, why didn't I die?) the projections (I'm going to die alone), the anxiety around any topic at all (Should I drive in the snow? I might crash the car and die). I've lived a life, I realize, of dirty pain. Of hating myself and my body for no real reason. Of obsession and anxiety, of guilt over not living my one precious life to the fullest, whatever the fuck that even means. Aaron released me from that little self-imposed, self-conscious jail cell. He let me be myself, and he loved me even though I never fully put the cap back on anything when I'm done using it."
Please don't misunderstand me - I liked this book quite a lot and there were moments I found some good laughs, though comparisons to Jenny Lawson are definitely taking it too far.
Look, this is a memoir about some damn difficult times in Purmort's life, and the promotions about it being "hysterical" fall flat and manufactured to me. I didn't find it "hysterical" and for such an account, I didn't want to. I'm not sure what brought me to this memoir and why I prioritized it above so much I have on my plate right now, though having gone through a (somewhat) similar experience certainly didn't hurt.
I didn't find those purported hysterics (though, again, some wry and cringing laughs, for certain), but I did find what I was actually looking for in the book; a person who is honest about experiences like this, and with whom I found a kinship and empathy.
"Some people have real and serious problems and should absolutely see a medical professional and maybe even take drugs. And maybe I should, but really, I think that I spent twenty-eight years as a person who didn't know how to live, who didn't know that happiness is isn't something that is handed to you, but something you have a hand in making, every day. It is harder than just getting up and grinding beans and brewing coffee, but it is just as ritualistic."
"'You just have to keep fighting.' 'Yeah? I mean, cancer isn't much of a fight for some people. There are some where treatment is basically you just standing there while the Mike Tyson of cancers sucker-punches you over and over again. This is hard stuff, and a person can only take so much. When it's clear that it's time to call it, that's okay, too.'"
"There's a school of thought around this, I find out (shout out to Google for giving me a PhD in Everything). There is clean pain, what actually happens to you (e.g. your husband dies, tragically) and then there is the dirty pain, the kind you give yourself. The negative feelings (I'm a terrible person, why didn't I die?) the projections (I'm going to die alone), the anxiety around any topic at all (Should I drive in the snow? I might crash the car and die). I've lived a life, I realize, of dirty pain. Of hating myself and my body for no real reason. Of obsession and anxiety, of guilt over not living my one precious life to the fullest, whatever the fuck that even means. Aaron released me from that little self-imposed, self-conscious jail cell. He let me be myself, and he loved me even though I never fully put the cap back on anything when I'm done using it."
rebecanunez's review
3.0
Conmovedor, divertido, honesto. No es un libro de autoayuda, sino que son los relatos honestos de una persona, que como muchos de nosotros, ha sufrido unas cuantas perdidas, entre otras cosas. Lo mas importante, es que a pesar de esto, ofrece una mirada llena de optimismo, y nos muestra que no hay una sola forma de vivir las perdidas y que cada uno hace lo mejor que puede.
slightly_devious's review
5.0
Had no idea what this was about. Listened to the audiobook and gahddamn this got me in the feels.
liralen's review
4.0
It is wrong to try on this fictitious sorrow for size when Aaron is sleeping beside me, and I drag myself from this imaginary hell into the real and present one in front of me. ... You cannot do that again, I tell myself. You cannot bury the man you love while he is still alive. (12)For such dark topics—miscarriage and cancer and death—Purmort strikes a wonderful balance of tones here: grieving, yes, but also funny and snarky and self-aware.
I think I would have preferred this as a single, cohesive narrative over the essay format that it's in, but I can't complain too much because the essay format ended up serving me well—I started reading but then took a long break to read a whole bunch of other things (and do things like start to learn German and do piles of work and make/execute impractical winter plans and so on and so forth) before finishing, but essays made it easier to pick right back up where I'd left off.
I've never been married and never been pregnant/had kids and never suffered the sort of losses that Purmort talks about here, but, I don't know. It's blunt and honest enough to reach a far broader audience than it might. Not all funny and not all serious, and a wonderfully accessible addition to the...how do I put this? to the hard-topics literature.
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