Play Book Tag discussion

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
5 stars + ♥

If you read no further in my review, at least know this: I absolutely loved this book.

This book caught my eye when it was first released. It got rave reviews, but I drug my feet on actually picking it up. I was under the (false) impression that it was a self-improvement book. Which is not a bad thing, I have read several self-improvement books that I really enjoyed, but I have to be in a pretty specific mood for them.

Then, I realized that this is not a self-improvement book. It is a memoir. Written by a therapist about her relationship with both her own patients and her personal therapist. I became even more intrigued. It was time to pick it up.

And I have never been so glad to have taken the plunge on a book.

This book was absolutely beautiful. Gottlieb tells such personal and touching stories about her patients. From Julie, the newlywed dying of cancer, to John, the narcissistic TV writer who is dealing with so much more than he lets on, to Rita, the nearly 70-year-old woman who must forgive herself for being complicit in the abuse of her children, to Charlotte, the mid-20s woman who cannot see that she is an alcoholic. I felt like I knew these people. I cheered for them when they made a breakthrough and I (literally) sobbed as they faced the harsh truths about themselves. And, through it all, I cheered for them.

And, interspersed with their stories was Gottlieb's very honest description of her own journey with her therapist Wendell. Following an unexpected and painful breakup on the eve of what she thought would be an engagement, Gottlieb spiraled, forcing her to seek "just a few" sessions of treatment to "get over this breakup." But, Wendell helped her realize that she was reacting to much more than just the breakup.

I cannot even express how much I loved this book. (I may need therapy just to process all of my feelings about it!) Gottlieb's writing was phenomenal. Probably not surprising as she was a journalist and worked in TV production before settling into her career as a therapist. The first half of the book had me laughing out loud and then I cried consistently through the second half. Just reading the books felt therapeutic.

And, ultimately, perhaps it was a little bit of a self-improvement book. With the message to be kinder to ourselves and even seek out therapy. To not be afraid to love. And that no matter what horrible things we have done in our past, the resulting "prison sentence" for punishment rarely should be a lifetime of misery.

I will be telling everyone in my life to read this book.

I really loved this one when I read it last fall--so glad you enjoyed it! I also very recently heard about Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery, which seems pretty similar. I probably won't have time to get to it this month, but I definitely plan to at some point.