Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

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

17 reviews

storytimejess2's review against another edition

The second essay was about grieving a miscarriage 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Miscarriage

Minor: Fatphobia

readbyroska's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

5.0

Read it if any of the following applies to you, and you can’t find your peace:

you’re feeling lost, hopeless, not good enough, deserving but unlucky, regretful, guilty, ashamed, disempowered, confused, heartbroken, lonely, isolated, alone, misunderstood, underachieving. 

Read if you are a partner, wife, husband, mother, father, boyfriend, girlfriend, daughter, son, child, friend, fuck buddy, teacher, student.

Read it if you don’t have anyone in your life who can love you and know you but still tell it to your straight. 

You will find something here for you, so sift through and find it.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Miscarriage, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Alcoholism, Toxic friendship, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Death, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Child death, Classism, Car accident, Religious bigotry, Bullying, Abortion, Incest, Addiction, Cancer, Transphobia, Rape, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Eating disorder, Drug use, and Drug abuse

throwback682's review against another edition

I got through the first 2-3 letters. I cringed when Sugar didn’t address medical fatphobia levied against a grieving mother. As a queer person I turned it off when Sugar talks about crying with joy at a Pride parade featuring police and republicans. I’m sure this book is beloved by many, but it’s certainly not for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Fatphobia, Medical trauma, Eating disorder, Miscarriage, Grief, and Homophobia

koplomps's review against another edition

hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Incest, and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Car accident, Child death, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Cancer, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Toxic friendship, Abortion, Bullying, Grief, Addiction, Abandonment, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Infertility

jackierabbit's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

I think I desperately needed to hear this:

”There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Animal death, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Death, Grief, and Incest

Moderate: Child death, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, and Rape

I definitely missed some trigger warnings but there were so many I can’t remember them. If I had known about them, I wouldn’t have read the book. It’s so heavy. Despite that, I know that it helped me a little bit, deal with some of the things that have happened to me.

renreads2much's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

God its such a beautiful book. This is the kind of book I believe everyone should read at least once. Everyone can get SOMETHING out of it, whether big or small. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, Alcohol, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, Grief, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship

These are all very brief depending on the submission. But It does not go into super deep detail, really just mentions these briefly or for the sake of context (if I'm remembering correctly.)

ada33's review

challenging emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I've read this book countless times now and it is genuinely my favourite book. I gain so much from it every time I read it and something different at each stage of my life. She's so wise and covers so much. If you've had a bit of a tough life you'll find comfort in here.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Miscarriage, Death of parent, Child death, Cancer, and Drug abuse

siobhanward's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

3.0

 Reese's Book Club Pick Reese's Book Club Pick 68/70

I'll be entirely honest - I started off thinking this was going to be an awful read. I don't read a lot of advice columns (any to be honest), so I'm not sure the usual style. I really wasn't sure how to feel when Strayed went on a tangent about her work as a youth advocate while responding to someone who had suffered a stillbirth - I get giving context, but it felt like hijacking the response to talk about herself. It also felt at times like things were just over simplified - do this one small thing and everything will be fixed.

However, the book got so much stronger at the end. The response about the future being uncertain and her mother buying a dress for a grandchild she never met struck me. The story about Brandon and the angry boys had me weeping. Strayed's advice to herself in her twenties was raw and real. I just wish every answer in the book had been as great as those ones, because Strayed has great advice and great style - it's just not always consistent. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Toxic friendship, Addiction, and Alcohol

bootsmom3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Dysphoria, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Child death, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Cancer, Sexual content, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Terminal illness

novella42's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book has been my favorite book for the last ten years. It's a steadfast and heart-wrenching masterpiece. It's a collection of advice column responses unlike anything I have ever seen, because she doesn't hide behind the anonymity of the column but instead bares her soul in the most unexpected and vitally human ways. 
 

Strayed cusses eloquently and covers a wide number of topics with wit, humor, and deep compassion. She speaks openly about her childhood sexual abuse and a number of the letters have to do with sexual violence. She also helps readers address alcoholism, drug abuse, adultery, domestic violence, grief, miscarriage, and existential crises.

A friend who is a survivor showed me her copy on the night she shared her story with me, and said how much the book had meant to her. Since then I have read it many times at many different places in my mental health journey, but it may be too raw or intense for someone in the early stages of healing from trauma or dealing with active flashbacks/nightmares. 

It cracks me open every time, but also holds my hand as we put the pieces back together. I need to read it again soon.

The author-read audiobook is powerful. She's also quotable AF in any medium:

"The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that."

"Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it's one thing and one thing only: it's doing what you have to do."

"We like to think we're right about what we believe about ourselves and what we often believe are only the best, most moral things. We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be selfish assholes first."

"There is no why. You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding."

"I'll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore."

"Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Child death, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Grief, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Child abuse, Cursing, Alcoholism, and Death