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A review by bethgiven
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott
4.0
"This is good news, that almost everyone is petty, narcissistic, secretly insecure, and in it for themselves, because a few of the funny ones may actually long to be friends with you and me. They can be real with us, the greatest relief."
This was a good book to close out 2020! With wry humor, Anne Lamott tackles an array of topics: hate, diet culture, setting boundaries, aging, faith, death. I appreciate that she speaks authentically, whether it's about something heavy (like the messy nature of family) or light (preferring Hershey's kisses to dark chocolate). There's a whole chapter on being grateful for books which, of course, I loved. And I appreciated the first chapter on paradox; being able to hold two opposing ideas is something I've been working on lately.
There were lots of good, quotable lines in this short book:
"Isolation is different than solitutude."
"What helps is that we are all not crazy on the same day."
"You can't logically get from where we were to where we are now. I think that is what they mean by grace."
And one quote that was a nice capstone for 2020: "In times of rational and primitive fear, hope has to do push-ups out in the parkng lot to stay pumped -- and it does."
This was particularly good on audio.
Content warning: brief mention of suicide
This was a good book to close out 2020! With wry humor, Anne Lamott tackles an array of topics: hate, diet culture, setting boundaries, aging, faith, death. I appreciate that she speaks authentically, whether it's about something heavy (like the messy nature of family) or light (preferring Hershey's kisses to dark chocolate). There's a whole chapter on being grateful for books which, of course, I loved. And I appreciated the first chapter on paradox; being able to hold two opposing ideas is something I've been working on lately.
There were lots of good, quotable lines in this short book:
"Isolation is different than solitutude."
"What helps is that we are all not crazy on the same day."
"You can't logically get from where we were to where we are now. I think that is what they mean by grace."
And one quote that was a nice capstone for 2020: "In times of rational and primitive fear, hope has to do push-ups out in the parkng lot to stay pumped -- and it does."
This was particularly good on audio.
Content warning: brief mention of suicide