Keep a budget, but get regular pedicures for self care - if you don’t, it’s definitely because you have a poor relationship with your monstrous mother.” Taking care of yourself through eating well, not muting our lives with drugs including alcohol, getting enough sleep, and nurturing relationships, makes for a much happier life.

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She also makes self care seem a bit too simple. "I'm sad so I called a friend who lives in Tokyo who told me to come visit her and so I did and wow seeing the world really changed my life and I think you should do the same" or "One day I felt bad about myself and then the next day I bought an unlimited pass to a meditation studio and now my life is changed" (I'm definitely paraphrasing here). A lot of the book comes off a bit elitist, to be honest. When someone says they went to a really nice private school, followed by Brown University, and then flippantly states how "poor" they were, it irks me to no end. There are moments when the author realizes her privilege, but most of the time, I think the things she has to say come off as incredibly tone deaf. I enjoy the honesty and that the book covered a wholistic approach to the mind, body and relationships, which are the most important to develop a healthy and happy life. Tara Schuster has done something remarkable: She’s written a guide to facing the slings and arrows of life that’s both delightfully irreverent and disarmingly earnest. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you might just come away stronger and better.”I also really liked the "I'm in this with you" tone to the book. Part of it could be defined as a memoir as she takes you through some of her own experiences and, most importantly, what she learned from them. There's a definite "things don't have to be as hard for you as they were for me" kind of sentiment to the book that makes it incredibly relatable and approachable. I really enjoyed the first half of this. The author gives some great recommendations of methods to get yourself out of your own head and into some habits that will help you in the long run. I definitely want to take her up on at least a couple of her suggestions. The author, Tara Schuster, after years of therapy, spent a good amount of time working on trying to reparent herself, trying different methods. In this book, she shares different methods she suggests, along with her sense of humor throughout. I found it to be a kind of self help book with lots of ideas of things to try for changing the negative voice in your head, and just getting more positive about your life. This is a regurgitation of the most overworked lessons from late 80s Oprah from the whiniest, least circumspect voice one could possibly imagine. “Write thank you notes! Keep a gratitude journal! Ever heard of exercise? Turns out it’s great!

Tara Schuster

Brutally honest, often hilarious, hard-won lessons in learning to love and care for yourself from a young vice president at Comedy Central who was called “ahead of her time” by Jordan Peele It’s also good to remember to live in an attitude of gratitude for what you do have instead of always wanting what you don’t have. I wrote my book with the singular goal of making other people feel less lonely. As a kid, the books of David Sedaris made me feel like I was not alone in having a "different" family and my prayer-hope-please-oh-please-wish is that my book gives you some comfort. Or at least a few laughs. I'll take either tbh. A bracingly honest, funny read...like Wild meets You Are a Badass." (Adam Grant, number one New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B)I identified with a lot of what Tara had to say. The tumultuous childhood she had was nuts. The most nutty thing were the unimaginably cruel voice mails her estranged mother would leave her after her parents separated and the mother took the younger sister, leaving Tara with her dad. So, even though I’ve had ups and downs with my own mom, it made me appreciate that we do have a good, if not always easy, relationship. I began to realize that I did indeed have a lot to be grateful for. That didn't mean I didn't also have trauma in my life. It certainly didn't mean that I had worked out all of my issues from childhood and now everything was “perf, thanks, byeee .” The trauma and the gratitude were able to live in the same space, together. Little by little, I pulled the golden thread of gratitude out from the blanket of pain I usually wrapped myself in.

Honest and practical lessons for healing your past and owning your future so you can radiate strength, bravery, and joy when life gets dark.So much so that any personal “improvements” really are — at the end of the day — self interested, fragile and (I strongly suspect) superficial.