Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed - Lori Gottlieb

Do I need therapy? Does everyone need therapy? I'm not sure but I feel like I want to go to therapy after reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. I suppose we are all carrying around pain and hurt in our lives. Perhaps childhood trauma or adolescent trauma or adult trauma. Maybe we're carrying around all these things and a therapist is there to help carry that load.

Now really, the author chose her poignant and successful patients here. Maybe therapy doesn't work out for everyone. But there's real heartbreak in this book and it is a heavy read at times. But also hopeful. Whether its the standoffish oaf who tries so hard to push everyone away, the elderly woman dealing with her loneliness, the terminal patient facing impending death, the lonely woman making all the wrong partner choices, or the author herself who faces a devastating breakup- all their stories author insight into the depths of our despair to where hope and growth might lie.

The book is well laid out between the author's own experience and that of her patients. Each patient grows and works along with the author to meet their goals. The cadence is well written and the patients are revealed to the reader as they become known to the author - slowly and through the building of trust.

4/5 Stars. 

Faithful - Alice Hoffman

This is probably 3.5 Stars. The writing it terrific as I would expect from Alice Hoffman. Faithful follows the story of Shelby Richmond, a 17 year old girl who has destroyed the life of her friend and herself during a near fatal car accident. 

Shelby is terribly depressed and pushes away everyone who tries to love and get close to her. The story is of her long, slow healing process which takes place in the book over the course of a decade. There are predictable elements and I didn't exactly like Shelby throughout the story, which made it hard for me to really fall in love with this book. The cast of supporting characters was great though. This book would probably make a good mini-series. The melodrama parts probably play better on screen. 

The character development Hoffman creates is well done for the most part, and her characters are nuanced and colorful. Otherwise there's really not much else to say about this little spare novel about a girl who has to learn how to love herself all over again.

3.5/5 Stars.