294 reviews for:

Dear Mr. You

Mary-Louise Parker

3.78 AVERAGE

miraclecharlie's review

4.0

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Fantastic read. Don’t miss it. Also, don’t read it all at once. Ms. Parker writes thirty-four letters to men who have touched her life, influenced her personal cosmology, shaped her emotional language and reality. These are mostly gorgeous, often insightful, wonderfully funny, touching, terrifying, and so very generous in their honesty and sharing of her truth and experience. But, again, I read them one at a time. No more than one a day. Sometimes just one a week. Because they are personal letters, to be cherished, savored, and not, so much, lumped in a great mass because they then lose their impact and become just words. And as I’ve said, it is important to give energy to the intent and essence behind the words others use, to allow time and space for the meaning beyond symbols of symbols for symbols we call language to wash over you, to move you, to touch you.

Original Review available on my blog, HereWeAreGoing, here: https://herewearegoing.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/reading-all-about-me-and-oh-right-dear-mr-you-by-mary-louise-parker/

jennsie's review

4.0

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This was a weird, weird little book, but really quite good!

call13cojess's review

5.0

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Beautiful

janalithgow's review

3.0

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Quirky and unexpected, and a very quick read.

atxerin's review

4.0

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I really enjoyed these short stories. Before I started this, I saw her at a book reading so I had her backstories and voice in my head the entire time I was reading it. It made the experience so much more meaningful and personal. There were a few stories in there that I couldn't relate to because I couldn't put myself in her shoes for some specific life experiences. But overall it was lovely and personal and simple. Her writing voice is very distinct and flows beautifully.

I have loved her as an actress since I was a child and now she has only proved herself in a separate realm in the arts. I have so much respect for her as an actress and now as a writer.

4.5/5 stars

emtomso's review

4.75

emotional fast-paced

janhutch's review

4.0

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Who knew that such a talented actor was such a lyrical writer as well? Some of her letters were stream of consciousness memories of what appears to have been a rather wild youth/young adulthood (or maybe it just seems that way from my rather lofty years). The letters about about her children (Dear Orderly, Dear Uncle, Dear Future Man Who Loves My Daughter) and her dad (Dear Oyster Picker)brought tears to my eyes.

calandra_hudson's review against another edition

3.0

emotional hopeful informative sad slow-paced

athenenoctua11's review

4.0

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Loved the language Mary-Louise Parker juggles here like she couldn't juggle in drama school. There are some sentences here and there that just take your breath away: they're so original yet simple, as though any of us could have got there but none had the insight to do so. Some of the letters are deeply moving, like the birth of her son, the one that is for her daughter even though it's disguised as being for the daughter's future husband, and of course the last one about her dad. There are some moments of brilliant humor too.

Most of the letters are cryptic but you can still guess who she meant as the Risk Taker (it's got Bruce Springsteen written all over it, imho) or who she wrote about in the middle of the Dear Nasa letter (just a guess). Some letters felt a little whimsical, like the joys of countryside and the neighbour, that one about the mexican boy that danced... It was a bit textbook "look how artsy and cool I am" BUT the author did express great humility and self-awareness and pure emotion in many of these letters. I once did a similar exercise, where I'd write a sentence about people in my life anonymously and, while it was fun, it felt incredibly self-indulgent. It felt like I was saying: look at all these people in my life, when in reality I felt quite alone and many of those people were in my past. So it's the format I have some issue with, not the content.

laughingwillow's review

3.0

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3.5⭐️