Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed Review

Nonfiction

304 pages

Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills—and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar—the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice. Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond.  Rich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.

Completion: A+
Writing/Style: A+
Characters: A+
Plot/Pacing: A
World-building/Atmosphere: A
Subgenres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): B+

Final Grade: A+ Get thee to a Bookstore!

Love, love, love, love, love, love. This novel is a collection of writing from an advice column called Dear Sugar. The success of the column is solely due to the generosity and compassion Cheryl Strayed greets each of her readers with. She opens up her life and shares personal stories. She gives hard truths. She admits her faults, frequently and loudly. Unlike the stereotypical advice columnist, Strayed gives the reader the feeling of being in the trenches with you, sharing tips on how to make it through. She never glosses over a question with a vague but polite answer. She never gives the cliched, shallow response. She never gives the answer you expect. She is able to do all this because she is giving you a part of herself. Her writing is beautiful and heart-breaking. She’s not afraid to curse or use vernacular or follow up with a story and then turn around and punch you in the gut. The miracle comes in that punch. You will find that her words ring true, and they hurt more than anything because you can feel the truth in them. I cried. I laughed. I cried some more. I had no trouble at all finishing this book. Just make sure you have some tissues. As well, since they are separate letters, you can read this book in one sitting or in piecemeal.
I would recommend this book to everyone because each letter will hit home in a different way, and I believe that in the years to come I will find that different letters will speak to me and that the same letters will affect me in different ways. Even if you are unsure about a book like this, I would STILL recommend you check it out.