A review by sidewriter
How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't by Lane Moore

4.0

You might expect this book to be dark and sad, but it is absolutely not. Lane Moore has been through some shit, and she has also clearly done (and is doing) the emotional work to process that shit into compost for her garden, which is full of both frivolous flowers and nutritious food. She has an economy with words that keeps everything sharp -- including and especially the frequent barbs of humor she spots and highlights throughout her journey. And it is an intense journey -- through an abusive family that is sometimes also well-intentioned, through several bad relationships with partners who replicate aspects of that abuse, through random beautiful moments that she sometimes recognizes and sometimes is too damaged to enjoy. This is a book that takes pain and makes it beautiful and funny and hopeful without obscuring it. I really loved it.