A review by lifesouvenirs
I'll Be There (But I'll Be Wearing Sweatpants): Finding Unfiltered, Real-Life Friendships in This Crazy, Chaotic World by Amy Weatherly, Jess Johnston

challenging emotional hopeful medium-paced

5.0

Becoming isn’t easy. Amy Weatherly 

Disclosure: I received an ARC via #NetGalley & a member of the book launch team. I purchased a copy and reread it looking for further connection to one of the authors  that maybe I missed in the digital ARC which was distracting…  I didn’t find what I was looking for in the reread. 

Favorite Quote from book: Becoming isn’t an easy thing. (Amy Weatherly) 

Chapter 10 was my favorite chapter - I highlighted pretty much all of it. This book was a tough read. That’s about as honest as I can get without breaking down sobbing. Sad tears. Healing tears. Hopeful tears.  I will admit - it was tough to give this 5 stars. It deserves it - but this book was hard! Did I mention that? It got extremely confrontational with my own loneliness & held no mercy as it held a mirror up to why that is.  I love how raw and humble Amy is.

I struggled connecting with Jess in her chapters. They honestly left me feeling worse. She sort of connected with me in chapter 11. But this book dragged out my loneliness and put a spotlight on it.  And Jess, often referred to many friends with years of friendships. And then tell us how she did it. But she didn’t come across to me - in the book - as someone who struggled with making friends or being lonely. I am not staying she hasn’t been lonely, i just never really felt she got vulnerable about it in her book. She just held that at an arm’s length away and I didn’t feel like she ever got real with it & I’ve seen her get real with it on social media. I felt like I showed up to meet her for this heart to heart convo via her book and her heart was edited out of it. I felt like it was written from her head, from behind a wall she had up. It was just really hard to connect with her in a book connecting to loneliness and struggle with making friends when she kept referring to the amazing friends she’s had show up in her life. And that was in sharp contrast with Amy’s chapters. I just feel like Jess could have been more real and vulnerable. She alienated me rather than connected to me.  However, there are people out there who don’t like that deep, get real, vulnerable stuff so they may find her chapters as a reprieve from Amy’s chapters.

Amy, on the other hand, was right there with me being vulnerable, getting real in her chapters … so I didn’t feel so alone as I struggled with some hard hitting realizations. 

I think both perspectives from the authors gives this book a wider appeal as far as audience goes & I think given the times we live in, the world needs that.  When I watched their interview on Good Morning America, both authors came across to me exactly how I perceived them in the book. Jess seemed to have a wall up - and Amy showed up all in. So it may just be a personality thing. I can’t put my finger on it. 

So I’m not going to penalize this book any stars because of the struggles it brought up for me or a personality collision with one of the authors. I think that’s exactly why it deserves the 5 stars. 

This has great information and offers hope that it’s not too late to create the space you carry with you and put yourself out there and invite others in. It does not leave you hanging! The only thing I felt like was left out that needed a place in there was a paragraph about what kind of people to invest in. I think it should be noted that it’s also important to be that kind of person as well. It’s important enough I don’t think it should be left unsaid. It’s the only thing I found lacking aside from my inability to connect with one of the authors.