Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

I loved reading this one. As I mentioned in my Instagram account - "This book is like a box of chocolates, I just can't stop reading another Dear Sugar letter." In hindsight, maybe I should have spaced them more. One or two a day would have allowed me to assimilate Sugar's responses and give me time to think about the wise things she wrote. And readers, wise she is considering she's not really old. Strayed is in her mid-forties, married with two young kids. In fact she's just a bit older than me but she is so much wiser and maybe it's because she went through so much as a young woman. She lost her mother at the tender age of 22. She was married and divorced by the time she was 25 and she had tons of different odd and not so fun jobs. One of the best ones was an unpaid gig as Sugar for The Rumpus website. It's curious how she debated whether to take the job or not considering she was down and out and it was unpaid.Thankfully for us she took the leap.

I don't think I'll ever forget some of the letters I read in this anthology. There's the one from Dead Dad, who lost his 22 year-old-son to a drunk driver; the one from the disfigured but wonderful young man looking for love; the one from the healthy young woman who is terrified she's going to get cancer one day; the one about the man who overheard his best friends talking negatively about him and his girlfriend; and so many other letters from ordinary people. Sugar's responses and reflections on her own life are also memorable. This is definitely a keeper. I highlighted so many lines and I know I'll be dipping into this again and again in the future. I do hope she writes a Volume 2.