Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And other rituals to fix your life, from someone who's been there

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As a memoir, I think I would have better enjoyed this one. But as a pseudo self help-type book, it really missed the mark. 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. Honest and practical lessons for healing your past and owning your future so you can radiate strength, bravery, and joy when life gets dark.

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Compelling, persuasive, and useful no matter where you are in your life." (Chelsea Handler, number one New York Times best-selling author of Life Will Be the Death of Me) 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. 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) 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 PeeleI 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. However, Tara ultimately winds up promoting an inherently self-centred world. In that world, the “individual” seems required to “win” against any wider social and cultural imperative.

Tara Schuster

I got an advance copy from NetGalley, so the first couple times I ran across the lowercase “rn,” I thought it was some kind of typo, which happens a lot in advanced reader copies. The third time, from the context, I realized she was trying to say “right now,” and apparently didn’t have the time or space to be clear about this. I’m on social media so I know many shorthand terms, but sometimes, just bothering to write things out makes for actual clear writing, which is a super handy thing when it comes to communicating in written form. I did not know much about Tara Schuster as a TV Executive but certainly know her work very well being involved in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Key & Peele. Her work with those shows helped their rise to popularity and its success. I loved to read about the personal life of very successful people and how they learned to manage the balance of their personal and professional life. The book was a great read and learned a lot from it and was able to take the advice to apply to my own personal life. I believe that other readers would be able to do the same as well. I found the read to be thoroughly thought provoking and admire the self-reflection as part of the book. I felt that the book was written with her heart on her sleeves and must be difficult to write these personal struggles for a very successful professional in the industry. 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. A book for the sparsely parented among us, this book aims to help readers "re-parent" themselves. It covers matters such as lessening negative self-talk, seizing opportunities, avoiding leaning on substances, best handling relationships, introducing an exercise program into your life - a wide variety of subjects, at least one of which is destined to speak to a problem that the reader faces. 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.

This is essentially a self-help book by way of memoir. There’s a lot of good stuff in here. It’s always helpful to have a reminder to stop the negative thoughts about yourself—like that you’re a failure because you don’t have a boyfriend/the job you want/you aren’t working out or eating well enough and so on. For some of us, giving ourselves pep talks is not our natural state, but Tara reminds us: If your friend were in a similar situation, would you talk to her that way?