A review by legendoflaura
The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer

5.0

I finished reading this book when David Bowie's Memory of a Free Festival played on my computer. I was sitting on my brothers hanging porch seat, enjoying the silky warmth of an Arizona day after spending three months cooped up from the New York cold. I took a very long time to read this book. I often would read a few chapters and go back to reread. Not because I had trouble understanding them, but because Amanda's writing resonated with me in different tilts. I had been craving for that visibility by my heroes, and she has a great way of dissecting the truth and humbleness of art and being seen.

I feel seen. I feel validated. I feel loved and cared for. I feel a clarity I haven't seen in years. This book was a godsend to me, an instruction manual on how to cope with a rough go of things I've been having. Taking so long to read this book, and reading it in different emotional climates and mental mindsets was something I hadn't anticipated, but I think exacerbated the things I needed to learn. I have grown from this book and its entirely beautiful way of being real and visceral.