Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

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

121 reviews

cj5300's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

Did not expect to get so emotionally attached to many of the characters in this book. I cried at the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Cancer

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Toxic relationship, and Car accident

Minor: Addiction and Alcohol

floralfox's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, Child death, Death, and Child abuse

zoeysdigest's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Splendid read, definitely one of my best reads so far. While it most certainly does not paint the whole picture of what therapy is, it was am informative, fun and heartening read.

🎯 I loved learning about the technicalities shown through examples of the patients as well as Lori herself.
🎯 The growth of all the characters, even the worst ones. I celebrated and cried with some (her experience with Julie got my tears flowing).
🎯 Seeing parts of others and myself in the characters made it a good opportunity for reflection.
🎯 It was well-written and personable, there were twists that kept you going
🤔 The bouncing back and forth of characters and timeline got a bit confusing at some points
🤔

It felt like Charlotte didn't really get an ending, like what happened to her and dude?

Overall a great book if you're seeking a (not-so-dry) book to learn more about yourself and have a great insight into therapy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cancer, and Alcohol

jemmo's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Cursing, Eating disorder, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Miscarriage, Medical content, Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Infidelity, Chronic illness, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Dementia, Gaslighting, Terminal illness, Death, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Drug use, Infertility, and Death of parent

kelseyruby's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Child death, Misogyny, Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, and Death

bloupibloupreads's review

emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” 

An amazing memoir, Lori Gottlieb retells the story of a life shattering break up with her boyfriend of two years and how she seeks therapy, as a therapist herself.  

By finding the right balance between funny and educational, I was able to learn a lot about therapy and human behavior. I even found myself tearing up at how crude and direct Gottlieb was in her prose. 

“We think we make bucket lists to ward off regret, but really they help us to ward off death. After all, the longer our bucket lists are, the more time we imagine we have left to accomplish everything on them. Cutting the list down, however, makes a tiny dent in our denial systems, forcing us to acknowledge a sobering truth: Life has a 100 percent mortality rate. Every single one of us will die, and most of us have no idea how or when that will happen. In fact, as each second passes, we're all in the process of coming closer to our eventual deaths.” 

The writing style is excellent, Gottlieb is an exceptional writer and it’s hard to believe she is (or was?) only a freelance author. This woman worked at Hollywood with George Clooney and Jennifer Aniston, after that she decided to pursue medical career to end up being a therapist and writing on the side as a sort of profitable hobby. She is Barbie IRL.

Although I enjoyed reading this book I was bothered by the length. The book, sitting at 450 pages, was too long and felt dragged on at certain parts. I think the book would have been better with 270/300 pages.

I also want to comment on the fact that Lori Gottlieb includes some of her patient’s life in this book, but to protect their identity (and I think for a legal aspect too) she had to change a good amount of information regarding them, making characters like Julie and John almost fictional which in this case might not be appropriate. It’s unclear how much of what we learn about them is fictional or not and like Matilda on Goodreads said: “Fifty percent truth is not the same as ten percent truth, and what's the point of detailing a therapeutic process if you've invented and mixed up the stories for literary/privacy purposes?”. 

This aside, I would definitely recommend this book to people who seek more understanding of the therapeutic work field without going into too much depth about it. People who enjoyed “These Precious Days” by Ann Patchett might enjoy this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Cancer

carly_the_librarian's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Car accident, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Cursing, and Miscarriage

Minor: Violence and Domestic abuse

redefiningrachel's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Cancer, Terminal illness, Drug use, Death, Chronic illness, and Addiction

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Suicide, Infertility, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Cursing

mariamarsbar's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative reflective

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Cancer, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Miscarriage, Child death, and Death

Minor: Car accident, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

saramoser's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

No rating because memoir/memoir like.
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While reading this book, I often wondered what parts were fiction and what were real to be able to protect the privacy of her patients and therapist. As someone who is in therapy, I enjoyed seeing/reading about therapy from the therapists point of view. I loved the learning aspect of the book, understanding what tactics therapists use and how - not that every therapist uses every tactic mentioned in this book, but it was nice to see. I especially enjoyed reading about termination, how we carry these relationships with us even after termination of the relationship. I would recommend this book to certain people, but can understand why it wouldn’t catch other people’s interest!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Death, Cancer, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Alcoholism