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. 

The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama

I know wading into anything political these days is foolish. It's one of the reasons I left Facebook behind. A place where even close friends or family can rip each other to shreds through the glowing warmth of their computer screens. And I'm particularly nostalgic these days for the measured and considered way in which President Obama seemed to discuss things. I wanted to see if that was merely rose-colored glasses hindsight or if I was remembering correctly.

The Audacity of Hope was written when Barack Obama was a newly minted Senator. And the book centers around various issues and problems facing our country. It was startling just how much the problems he discusses facing 2006 America sound shockingly similar to the problems facing 2018 America. But the part that shines through the brightest is President Obama's pragmatic and realistic approaches to problems. He may not come up with the same solutions as his conservative critics, but his thought process in getting to the solutions are evidence based and practical. There's no hysteria or lectern thumping in this book. Just conversational discussion of income and racial inequality that still exists in our country. 

His fundamental question throughout the book is what do we value? A few gems on values that really struck a chord with me:

"Where do you put your time, energy, and money? Those are your values."

"Values are faithfully applied to the facts before it. Ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question." 

The book was a refreshing step back from the increasingly hostile political culture we find ourselves in today. Disagree with him, sure, but let's forego a Facebook flame-out.

4/5 Stars