Totally Fine And Other Lies I Ve Told Myself

‘If Dolly Alderton, Glennon Doyle and Elizabeth Day had a love child, this is the writer they’d produce.’ Laura Jane Williams, author and journalist Stylist’s Must Read Book for 2022 Evening Standard’s Faces to Watch in 2022 Do you have a story that you are scared to tell? A story that you’ve spent your life trying to escape. I’m going to tell you mine. One day, in the summer of 2008, I was travelling back to London when I received a phone call that suddenly changed everything. I was told my boyfriend Richard was in hospital. He died seven days later. I spent most of my twenties pretending this never happened. I was trapped within my own silence, left alone to absorb the discomfort, blame and judgement of others that I felt after Richard’s suicide. I was suffering, but telling everyone that I was totally fine. The shame consumed me and I desperately wanted to find love again, but the rejection and heartbreak that followed proved to me, yet again, that I wasn’t worthy of love and belonging. In our twenties, we are thrown into the adult world without a guidebook. I experienced a turbulent decade with what felt like catastrophic failures. Then one day, I started to speak about my shame, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. And I’ve come to realise that shame is like a monster – one that can grow so large that it can hold us back from a life worth living. And that it is only by sharing our stories that we can give a voice to what is unspoken. A voice to the stories that we don’t want to tell. So whatever pain you’re holding on to, whatever story you’re scared to tell, I’m writing this for you. ‘I wish I'd had this book to guide me into adulthood.’ Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland and The Boy with the Topknot ‘Will go a long way to helping those struggling with the stigma and shame that, sadly, persistently surrounds mental health.’ Vicky Spratt, Refinery29

“Whitney Cummings has written a book about being, well, not fine—and what to do when you find yourself with brutal anxiety and a co-dependency disorder; all in her trademark wit, humor, and honesty. This book, however, is fine as hell.”—Sophia Amoruso, author of #Girlboss “The funniest cry for help you'll read this year.”—BJ Novak Well, well, well. Look at you, ogling my book page....I presume if you’re reading this it means you either need more encouragement to buy it or we used to date and you’re trying to figure out if you should sue me or not. Here are all the stories and mistakes I’ve made that were way too embarrassing to tell on stage in front of an actual audience; but thanks to not-so-modern technology, you can read about them here so I don’t have to risk having your judgmental eye contact crush my self-esteem. This book contains some delicious schadenfreude in which I recall such humiliating debacles as breaking my shoulder while trying to impress a guy, coming very close to spending my life in a Guatemalan prison, and having my lacerated ear sewn back on by a deaf guy after losing it in a torrid love affair. In addition to hoarding mortifying situations that’ll make you feel way better about your choices, I’ve also accumulated a lot of knowledge from therapists, psychotherapists, and psychopaths, which can probably help you avoid making the same mistakes I’ve made. Think of this book as everything you’d want from the Internet all in one place, except without the constant distractions of ads, online shopping, and porn. I’m not sure what else to say to say, except that you should buy it if you want to laugh and learn how to stop being crazy. And if we used to date, see you in court.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A meditation on sense-making when there’s no sense to be made, on letting go when we can’t hold on, and on being unafraid even when we’re terrified.”—Lucy Kalanithi “Belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.”—Bill Gates NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before. Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live. Praise for Everything Happens for a Reason “I fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and gripping—she’s like a Christian Joan Didion. I left Kate’s story feeling more present, more grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for?”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising

"Jen offers up all the gory details of a life permanently in progress. She reassures you that it's okay to not have life completely figured out, even when you reach middle age (and find your first gray pubic hair). She talks about making unusual or unpopular life decisions (such as cultivating a 'friend with benefits' or not going home for the holidays) because you don't necessarily want for yourself what everyone else seems to think you should. It's about renting when everyone says you should own, dating around when everyone thinks you should settle down, and traveling alone when everyone pities you for going to Paris without a man"--Amazon.com.

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Interwoven with tales of World War I, this is a story about growing up, moving on and the strength of a family. Things haven't been going so well for fifteen-year-old Esther Armstrong. With her brother Max - her closest ally - absent, she's forced to face everything alone, not least her parents' heated arguments. As the summer holidays stretch endlessly ahead, she's desperate for something, anything, to divert her attention. Then she finds some letters hidden in the walls of her family home, sent by a soldier to his sweetheart from the trenches of WWI. Esther is consumed by the mystery of these lovers - not very much older than herself - and what became of them. Perhaps in piecing together the jigsaw of someone else's life, Esther can work out how to reassemble her own, and how to make everything fine again...

Welcome to the club you never wanted to join. When someone you love dies, it may seem impossible to know what will happen next and how you will cope. Losing someone in early adulthood, you may feel even more alone, when no-one around you seems to have had the same experience. Our letters don't have all the answers, but they do have some - because we've been through it ourselves. Some of us have written to ourselves back on that first day of grief, with the reassurance that we will get through those awful first months. Others share snippets from our grief journeys - from the experience of therapy, to the power of getting creative. Encompassing all types of loss, these stories show that there is no one way to grieve. They talk honestly about grief - the sad, the bad, and the surprisingly beautiful. Welcome to the Grief Club, we're so glad you've found us.