A review by daybreak1012
Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist

4.0

I practice my religion differently from Shauna, more traditionally, but that doesn't stop there from being profound, fundamental similarities as well. And this applies to more than just the way she practices her Christianity. There were parts of what she shared that were foreign to me, because they are thoughts and experiences I haven't had, just as there were pieces of her soul laid bared that resonated so deeply I had to pause to feel the moment of recognition, of seeing myself in what she wrote of her own self. It's startling, really, to see yourself in and through the words of someone else. I have to wonder at some of the reviews I read, readers who couldn't find even a single anecdote with which they identified, because some of the base emotions and fears and flaws revealed in these pages seemed like something every human life has encountered, in some way or another, when we look honestly through our individual eyes. Did Shauna seem preoccupied with herself and whiny at times? Sure, because she was being real and honest and raw, and I don't know a single person, even the very best of all the people I know, but most especially myself, that hasn't been preoccupied or whiny...or scared or lonely or self-conscious. Most of us could do with a good, hard, long, honest look at ourselves though, and I felt like Shauna's writing really encourages that. Because, man oh man, what a beautiful gift this everyday life is, even when it's messy and hard, maybe mostly when it's messy and hard.