Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice On Love & Life from Dear Sugar

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Average customer rating 4.8 (32 comments)

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I am a huge fan of Cheryl Strayed (Yes, Wild.)I therefore, had huge expectations from this book. This is probably why it was a let down. I felt the choice of letters to reply to were not that good and except for some really poignant queries, most were repetitive. Chery's answers too were not great - too much personal stuff, and way too long.

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Are writers our wisest citizens? As I read this compilation of "Dear Sugar" advice columns, I was struck not only by what a gifted writer Cheryl Strayed happens to be, but also how incredibly insightful are her responses. This is simply a brilliant and beautiful collection of powerfully encouraging words shared with people desperately needing a kind, wise, word from a compassionate friend. I was inspired.

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Though "Wild" has been getting a lot of press recently--I guess that will happen when Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern make a movie about your life--what drew me to Cheryl Strayed originally was this collection of columns she write as "Dear Sugar." Whether or not you're familiar with her as a columnist (I wasn't), you will find endless amounts of good sense, humor, and empathetic writing at its best in Strayed's letters responding to her readers. She is honest, kind, and not afraid to tell you that she's been through it all as well--which is sometimes exactly what you need to hear. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with a relationship, a career, or maybe neither or both of those things. Strayed has more than enough wisdom to share, and we could all stand to learn a bit from her.

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I've been hearing a lot of praise lately for Cheryl Strayed's "Wild" and "Torch," but I haven't read many reviews of this fantastic collection of her "Dear Sugar" advice columns. I'm so glad I have this on my shelf. "Tiny Beautiful Things" will motivate and inspire you to try harder, reach higher and feel a little bit better about the fact that sometimes when you try harder and reach higher, you'll fall flat on your face. Strayed has a knack for reading between the lines and pointing out hard truths to her readers, all in a way that makes you feel like she really knows you and is pulling for you. And, as always, Strayed is just plain funny. I'm not the sort to read advice columns or self-help books, but this book stopped me in my tracks. Whether you devour it in one sitting as I did or whether you read a column once in a while when you're down in the dumps, I know "Tiny Beautiful Things" will leave you better off than you were before.

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Amazing! A quote for her book also serves itself as a review: "Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here."

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Tiny Beautiful Things is a unique book that is so much more than a collection of advice columns. Strayed's writing is profound, thoughtful, joyful, and generous. This is a book I'll keep handy, re-reading my favorite essays and getting another dose of insight, wisdom, and compassion.

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Brilliant, original, timely. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking --- but always devastatingly honest and relentlessly compelling. I've recommended this book countless times and will continue to do so.

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Wisdom and great writing come together perfectly. I was profoundly moved over and over again.

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Piercing, intimate writing full of deep, deep humanity. Reading it will make you a kinder soul.

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It truly makes you feel beautiful inside and the advice is very rewarding.

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It's not the type of thing I would usually pick up, but the cover drew me in. Within five sentences, it became the book I couldn't put down. I was ravaged by this, I laughed and sobbed and ultimately felt a thousand times better about myself and my life. Truly my favorite read of 2012.

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It took me awhile to pick up this book, because advice columns are not really my thing. Once I started reading it, I knew I had to finish it quickly to share it with a friend and that friend has since bought four more copies to share with other people. Cheryl Strayed offers honest, but empathetic responses to the letters and everyone can take something away. She is someone you would want for a friend and the kind of friend you would hope to be.

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Throughout my life I've found that books are like people. Some books you enjoy, some books you hate, some books are difficult and some books are sweet and easy to spend time with for hours on end. Tiny Beautiful Things is that person that challenges you, comforts you and you just can't spend enough time with because they see all the way to your soul and they like what lives there. For me, Tiny Beautiful Things was as close to God Speak as I've read. It is filled with stories, cloaked in advice, that like a benevolent God, encourage you to stretch and grow, seek truth, question the status quo and always, always risk it all for love...

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I got this book for my birthday. It's beautifully written, full of encouraging, affirming observations about life. Six months later, I can't stop thinking about it.

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This is the third book I've read by Strayed. I enjoyed it the most because she is really in her element here... The Virgo giving heartfelt advice. The writing is fluid and there is so much thought behind it. Much advice I take to heart because it is based on Cheryl's experience and research. This book is wise and thought provoking. Strayed can tell a story.

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Made me laugh, cry, and snort out loud!

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Loved both her books this year, but this was the favorite. So thoughtful, funny, kind, and full of all kinds of truths. My favorite of 2012.

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Wonderful!

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Cheryl Strayed's advice is tender, honest, and absolutely spot on. Less than a collection of columns about particular situations, it's more a book about how to pick yourself up and go on in the midst of loss, confusion, and occasionally horror. This was the book my partner and I brought on vacation and read together in bed, with happy tears at the world Strayed creates and shares. It's a world of pet names and the tenderest of ass-kickings, with enough personal revelations so the reader knows from whence she speaks. A hard-won view of the world as wrenching and beautiful and always worth embracing.

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Everybody I hear talk about this book says that they laughed and cried. It is true. But more than that I wept and laughed for the deep heart in all of us that unites us in the sweetness and sorrow of living a life. The spiritual relief of reading this book healed me. Seriously, I read it again and again...and give it to my dearest friends to read too.

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Cheryl Strayed has a way with prose. Much more than an advice column, this collection is more like lovely, tender essays. Reading this book made me want to be gentler with people, to be tender and caring about our shared human condition.

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Cheryl Strayed's wise counsel, both passionate and calm, repeatedly reminded me to acknowledge how bad things can be, in ways that can't be fixed or forgotten, and how to keep going anyway by developing an open heart and loving partnerships, family, and/or community.

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This is more than a simple advice book. This book helps us to look at situations from a different perspective, and, in my view, points the way in a direction that leads to healing and improved interpersonal communications and relations. All of the letters were submitted by readers to the Dear Sugar advice column. Cheryl Strayed writes with humor, grace, compassion, and honesty, sharing deeply personal stories from her own life. She is also expert at using the f-word!

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This book breaks your heart again and again. It opens it wide and fills it with genuine emotion. I found at moments that I could not put it down and yet had to just stop reading to have some time to digest what it had brought up. I love Sugar's blunt approach and her storytelling, how she connects the troubles of those that write to her to the troubles she has known in her life and distills the essential message. She is angry, imperfect, profane, tolerant, kind. She cares.

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Insightful without condescension, honest without equivocation, and funny without derision. What makes this collection of advice columns so interesting and enjoyable to read is its author. Cheryl Strayed has suffered, rejoiced, made mistakes, made choices, had good times, and had bad times, but has always picked herself up and started again. When she gives advice, she doesn't do it from on high. She understands her readers because she's had problems too, and she's willing to share her experience. She's a gifted writer with a true sense of empathy, and whether or not you've had the same problems as those who write in to "Sugar," you find yourself relating to those people and encouraged by Sugar's enthusiasm and hope. Beautifully done.

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I love Cheryl Strayed's writing style, and most of her advice is good. However, I was extremely put off by the fact that, while she left her first husband for no reason, she stays with her second even after he cheated on her. Her personal choices are not ones I want to emulate, and therefore it's hard to take her seriously as an advice columnist.

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This book is nothing short of incredible. I can't describe Strayed's work as Dear Sugar as that of an advice columnist without feeling I'm slighting Strayed and the beautiful essays she's written here. These are essays, not columns, brimming with compassion and delving into all of life's trickiest mysteries. This is a book I couldn't put down once I'd started it -- it's so profoundly satisfying I'll be reading it again as soon as my best friend gives it back to me.

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After seeing Strayed's success with 'Wild' (an excellent memoir) I was interested in reading the 'Dear Sugar' column which I had only recently heard of. While some may think it's a shame that Sugar is no longer anonymous, I am grateful to have found her now. While Sugar's observations are extremely wise and profound, having read the personal transcendence Strayed documented in 'Wild', Sugar's humanness and constant yearning for positive growth in herself and others is even more poignant. Her advice is so simple yet the actions are so difficult for humans in our culture - humbleness, honesty, trust in self, and letting go. Sugar doesn't tell us these actions will be simple. She tells of her own experiences and the suffering and struggle that comes along with it, but also the absolute magic that happens when you get through it. As in 'Wild', the simplest thing - taking one step at a time - is something that can only be done with respect for yourself, others, and the universe. I am grateful to writers like Strayed who lay themselves bare to remind us that our trangressions, grief, stupid mistakes, and seemingly tiny joys are wonderful, complex and universal experiences. A great supplement to 'Wild', 'Tiny Beautiful Things' rounds out the picture of Strayed in her twenties to show us the amazing person her experiences have shaped her into, and an encouragement for all of us sweet humans to do the same.

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This is the kind of book you leave out on the coffee table and people will pick it up read one or two pages and then take the book to a comfy chair and read a lot more. I don't normally read advice columns, but these are spot-on and very relatable. Very excited to meet Ms. Strayed and discuss this with her at our book club in October.

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“Ten Angry Boys” had me in tears, and I wanted so badly to hug Strayed that it hurt. She obviously responded to only a fraction of the letters she received, but what she’s chosen resonates with my experience as if she were my older and smarter, more experienced and wiser sister. I cried over and over, recognizing myself in the letters written and sometimes even in Strayed’s responses. There is more sensible advice here than I’ve ever found in one place about how to get from age 20 to 40 with your integrity and heart both in good working order. Her personal stories knocked me over, but this isn’t “you think you have pain, let me tell you,” this is genuine truth and love and compassion which pretty much puts every advice column I've ever read out the back door, takes over the house and installs a band in the parlor to celebrate the action. If I were a doctor I’d prescribe this for your health, to be reapplied generously every time you are confused, jealous, desperate, or think you don’t know what you’re doing. Because, sweet pea, you do know.

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Had dipped into a few things of Ms. Strayed's online, like "What We're Hungry For" at www.creativenonfiction.org, and now I’m immersed. This woman is the bodhisattva of our time. Enlightened beyond measure, it's humbling to read her, to realize how compassionate, fearless, loving and empathetic she is. I recently attended her reading/signing event at Warwick’s Books in La Jolla. She read from WILD and TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS. Sugar/Strayed is like no other writer I’ve ever encountered. To quote Maxwell Kinney my online parallel at www.apartinthemidstof.com: "She’s funny, luminous, knowing and emergent. Is that not crazy, emergent?, like there’s more to come. A 40-something bodhisattva who, I expect, will be a long-time fixture on the NY Times bestseller list, and it won’t come from marketing and promotion or author tours. It will come from reading her and it will be word of mouth. There’s something in her language, in her 'literary mode of being,' in the Strayed 'word.' She’s already seen as a savior and saint on Tumblr. Anyone who reads her will be blown away and unable to resist her brilliance and charm. Everything else becomes secondary when you engage her, when you begin to see how open and honest she is, how she has come to eliminate the barrier between the word and the thing, the description and the described. She’s so down to earth, so simple and clear on how to live and love that you’re shaken to the depths. She’s the goddamn deliverer; she shows the way. If you read no one else, if time is short for you, if you’ve only got time for one more book, if you don’t read TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS you will have missed your chance at glimpsing what it means to be at ease, to know, to understand. Bliss." You have to be brave to get it, to see clearly. She will confront your every doubt, foible and insecurity. To get her, to read Cheryl Strayed, is to stand before the mirror and not look away. There will be a clarity you could not have imagined: unencumbered, unambiguous, pure and unadulterated. What are you waiting for?

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Radical empathy indeed! Sugar delivers raw, honest and real answers to all sorts of needs. I've laughed out loud, wept and took some serious advice to heart. A must read for anyone who needs to work through anything - which means everyone!