Review: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. That is the best way to characterize how I felt about this one! I was pleasantly surprised by this one - it's essentially a collection of advice columns. But, WOW, are they some of the best advice I've ever read. Cheryl Strayed has a way with words and a way of putting things together in such a brilliant way!

I think this is one that I'll buy for my at home book collection. It's something that I would love to be able to go back to over time, dipping in as I needed to.

The advice is sensible, piercing, truthful and compassionate. I was literally brought to tears by a few of these. They just resonated in ways that I would never have imagined.

Here is just a taste of what awaits you in this book -

"Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.”

“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.”

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

“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.”

“You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt with. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding and my dear one, you and I have been granted a mighty generous one.”

"But as the mother of two children, I can tell you what most moms will: that mothering is absurdly hard and profoundly sweet. Like the best thing you ever did. Like if you think you want to have a baby, you probably should.

I say this in spite of the fact that children are giant endless suck machines. They don’t give a whit if you need to sleep or eat or pee or get your work done or go out to a party naked and oiled up in a homemade Alice B. Toklas mask. They take everything. They will bring you the furthest edge of your personality and abso-fucking-lutely to your knees.

They will also give you everything back. Not just all they take, but many of the things you lost before they came along as well.”

Okay, that's enough. I could literally add almost all of of the book here. That's how much I loved it. It resonated. It tore me apart. It made me think and re-think. It moved me.

I love the way Strayed writes - she has a 'pull no punches' way about her. I think this is a book most everyone should take a look at. It really is that good.

Okay, enough gushing. Just go read this one. Trust me.

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