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

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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