Tiny Beautiful Things: Reese's Book Club: Advice from Dear Sugar

What’s the experience like? Strayed’s ability to elicit empathy and peace in even some of the darkest of stories is incredibly moving. At many points in the book I came up with a lake of epiphanies, and reinforced some pre-existing ones. I want to share them, but I’ll just lunge the few that made the tuning forks in my mind purr:1. Guilt and shame, while closely inhibited, are very different things.2. Sexual anxiety and jealousy are often guised as extreme monogamy3. The questions you most often don’t want to ask are the ones that most often need answering.4. We control very little. Thoughts, emotions, even logic and reason are unsolicited conditions that are ever changing.5. Beliefs lag behind reality You will laugh. You will cry; definitely cry. Make sure you keep a box of Sham-Wows nearby.Why should I read this? It will make you less of a bug buzzing intolerant poop-stick. It will make you realize your problems are not special. You will, without doubt, come across a letter that sounds like it was written by you, maybe slightly more or less extreme, and you will feel a part of yourself get soul-crushed and healed as you read the very sentences. It will show that you and the people around you are okay. It will bring you closer to the answer of what love is. It will make you question what love is. Wait.How do I apply this to my life? Empathy is the pipeline of trust, connection, and understanding in our relationships. You’ll nurture a greater sense of that with this book.

A marvelous book, Tiny Beautiful Things reminded me of the prevalence of human suffering and the part we can play in easing one another's burdens. Based on an advice column, Dear Sugar, it’s filled with letters to Sugar asking for advice on love, heartache, disappointment, and suffering. From cancer to adultery and death to Christmas, Sugar responds with tough, shrewd compassion. She doesn’t candy coat her responses or pull any punches. And yet…and yet, no one who reads them could dispute her genuine concern and compassion for her advice seekers. She calls them “sweet pea,” and signs her letters, “Yours, Sugar.”Cheryl Strayed knows the power of story, and in most of her messages, she includes a story about herself or someone she knows. And the writing is soooo good! In one column, she quotes Italian writer Carlo Levi who said, “The future has an ancient heart,” and while I was pondering what that meant, Strayed wrote, “…that who we become is born of what we most primitively are; that we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to make manifest in our lives.”Every page is filled with sound advice written in a no-nonsense manner that forces the reader sit up and take notice. There’s humor. But mostly there’s support and insight. Of all the chapters, the most heartrending is “The Obliterated Place.” Strayed responds to "Living Dead Dad" in the aforementioned piece with, "I don't know how you go on without your son. I only know that you do. And you have. And you will.Your shattering sorrow light of a letter is proof of that." Read it. Read them all.Advice from Cheryl: Every last one of us can do better than give up.

There is nothing tiny or beautiful about this book. It is full of profanity and exaggeration. Author claims to have experienced every wacky situation mentioned in the letters she answers. All letters appear to have been written by English majors: good grammar, big words, and detailed descriptions. Could not finish book due to the profanity. Shows how books are "pushed" on readers by publishers just to make a buck. I feel bad that this book "contaminated" my Kindle!

Cheryl is a fantastic writer and her ability to connect and weave her wisdom and art into helpful words for strangers that transcend her personally is inspiring and is of great comfort, especially to a bibliophile in dire need of some emotionally supportive sugar that may otherwise be lacking. This book breathes true stories, personal memoir, art/poetry, and practical advice that encourages one to think a little differently and a lot more empathetically about our life and all the people in it. I found her shortly after college; a time to feel accomplished (which was true) but tired, broken, and lacking. Let's just say when many fail and harm you - strangers like sugar are present, compassionate and show you that you too can make gold from all of it, even all that horrible badness. Some did not directly apply to me at the time - but the parts that did helped me heal wounds I vehemently denied were even there - merely by showing how we are not all ALL ALONE, as we may often feel. Years later, with more life and goodness/badness - I hear her echoing wisdom again in a different light. It's a book to revisit - it covers, if not all, most aspects of life you have encountered as well as those you did not encounter yet, but might. If you're a proud crier like me, it behooves you to have some pain killers, your favorite blanket and plenty of warm fluids at the ready.

I am not normally a fan of self help or of advice columns, but Cheryl Strayed's Sugar column may change my mind. She has a unique talent for getting under the question and teasing out the complex psychological assumptions that inform the writer's questions. Moreover, she writes her answers as if they were literary essays, brimming with heart-rending narratives and gorgeous language. I hesitated to buy this book because it's so far from my typical genre, but man, am I ever glad I did.

I stumbled across this title on a Buzzfeed article after having googled “books to read whilst you’re going through a break up”. Summer of 2018, I was between a rock and a hard place: the agonising hell of deciding whether to end a loving relationship or not. Well, it’s now mid-November and I’ve just finished reading this wonderful collection of letters that has been such a source of comfort and wisdom during these soul-searching months. And the great news is that I found the strength inside me to end the relationship, pick up the pieces and rebuild my life the way I wanted it to be.I already know I’m going to reread this book many times.Break-up or just a bad day, these letters to and from Sugar are the reminder you needed to get back to yourself, or at least take the first step.Thank you, Sugar.

While reading this book and other peoples stories, being humbled about their struggles and pain and trauma that are worse than mine, not once did I feel that my own doesn’t have significance. That’s why this book is so good. It’s not about who has it better or worse. It’s about recognizing our own pain and our joys and being more loving to each other. To be courageously honest with ourselves so we can be the best version we can.Cheryl has lived an interesting life, ironically one that reminds me of the phrase ‘you couldn’t write this stuff’. And very relatable because so much of life is unplanned.I don’t know if anyone else who has lived the same experiences would be able to write about it as good. It’s her perspective and heart of it all. Thank god she’s a writer.

If my love of advice columnists is as much to do with the idea of community – a problem shared, and worked through almost as much by writing it down as by the advice itself – Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar is among the best. Her advice is warm, empathetic and always, always human, and this collection of columns from The Rumpus will have you wishing your Kindle allowed you to turn down the page.

Bought this after reading Wild because of it's brutally honest writing. Some of it makes for uncomfortable reading because it deals with things like child abuse and victims of domestic abuse, which makes it all the more reason to read. Enlighten yourself!

I can't recommend this book highly enough - and I don't often write reviews. You'll laugh, cry and, above all, learn. Straight talking, forthright - in sometimes 'colourful' language! - that has something of great value to say to everyone. I discovered this book when coming across a quotation taken from it on the internet. Intrigued, I bought the book and couldn't put it down, but didn't want it to end either! This one's a keeper! Thanks Cheryl Strayed/Sugar!