dhirschhorn 's review for:

This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps
4.0
It so pains me to not give this book 5 stars, but I'm going to be honest about it because I think Busy would appreciate that. Mostly, I feel this book made me not relate to her in a way that's so different from watching her on Instagram. Like, the number of videos I have screengrabbbed because, I am this person crying in her hotel room about how nothing really works to make her feel fully healthy, or my God, it is so hard to meet someone today, thank you for acknowledging it, Busy. But then this book made me realize that as Busy describes herself, she's one of those people who sparkle. She has had so much happen to her in life, enough to write a book about, clearly, and I...haven't. I don't consider myself someone with sparkle. I do a lot of wondering how those people got so lucky and trying not to think ugly thoughts about it. I appreciate her honesty about the hardships she's endured. The sexual assault, the choice of a teenaged abortion, the failed relationships, not finding success where she thought it would be, having to face death so many times with people she was close to. It was harder for me to read about her honesty about people she didn't vibe with, that she absolutely is entitled to not like. I don't think I could ever be that honest in such a public way. The boldness to not care that they would read it, that they would know, I'd like to say I could one day give so little fucks, but it seems unlikely. Her confidence overall in the book made me uncomfortable, which, is my problem entirely, but still took away from my enjoyment of it. Because I had to wonder why I was uncomfortable. I clearly adore her and think she's wonderful, why shouldn't I want her to feel that for herself? And I did cry a bit while reading the book, the first time on the EL only 5 pages in, where she listed all the things she has shared over the past few years. And I remembered all of them. I think I'll remember reading this book too, and being bummed that even though she came to Chicago, she actually came to Naperville, and was too far out in the burbs for me to get too feasibly, and how I kind of wanted to skip class to do it anyway, but worried that my professor wouldn't think she was the kind of literary person I should be skipping Critical Reading and Writing for. Having read the book now I know for sure, Busy would have skipped the class. She'd have made a playlist for the drive and probably cried on her way home from it. I went to class. I love her anyway.