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A review by thenovelmaura
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
This was one of my 12 recommendations from 12 friends for the year 2022, and I'm glad my friend Jenn pushed me out of my comfort zone with this one! I remember all of the hype surrounding this book when it was released in 2019; so many of my friends loved this book and I felt a lot of pressure to enjoy it, too.
I'm of two minds when it comes to this rating (maybe it's too low?), but I didn't really like the sections about the author, which is a terrible thing to say about a memoir, I guess. All of her patients were so interesting and their therapy sessions were so thought-provoking; I loved reading those chapters and was always disappointed when the story went back to Gottlieb. There was a lot of unaddressed privilege in the narrative she told about herself, from the ease with which she found a therapist when she needed one to the way she left a well-paying job in television to attend medical school (before dropping out of medical school entirely).
On the other hand, the rest of the book was engrossing and had so many amazing tidbits about love, forgiveness, and living life to the fullest. I do see how this could encourage people to start therapy if they were previously on the fence about doing so. And I'm all for stories that normalize mental health issues and ways that we can cope with the difficulties in our lives. The psychology minor in me wants to give this 4 stars but the English major in me pulled it down to 3, so make of that what you will!
I'm of two minds when it comes to this rating (maybe it's too low?), but I didn't really like the sections about the author, which is a terrible thing to say about a memoir, I guess. All of her patients were so interesting and their therapy sessions were so thought-provoking; I loved reading those chapters and was always disappointed when the story went back to Gottlieb. There was a lot of unaddressed privilege in the narrative she told about herself, from the ease with which she found a therapist when she needed one to the way she left a well-paying job in television to attend medical school (before dropping out of medical school entirely).
On the other hand, the rest of the book was engrossing and had so many amazing tidbits about love, forgiveness, and living life to the fullest. I do see how this could encourage people to start therapy if they were previously on the fence about doing so. And I'm all for stories that normalize mental health issues and ways that we can cope with the difficulties in our lives. The psychology minor in me wants to give this 4 stars but the English major in me pulled it down to 3, so make of that what you will!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer and Child death
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Alcoholism