Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice by Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed was such an incredible delight of a book. I read the 10th anniversary edition that was released in November 2022 to coincide with the Hulu show and Reese's Book Club's pick for the month, which has six additional columns, some of them revolving around COVID-19.
I really liked this book, and I think it would be a nice read for anyone, whether you're going through something or not. I read this book in April 2023, a month after I had moved into my first apartment by myself and a month into my first adult job. I was in a super transitional period, and some of the columns helped me find my grounding and find a new perspective for some of the things I've suffered through in the past.
One of my favorite essays was the "Empty Bowl," where Strayed talks about her non-existent relationship with her father and how if she stopped filling the bowl, she no longer gave him power over her and her life. This really resonated with me at the time I read it, and I'm sure if I read this book later in the future, I would probably have a different favorite essay.
Overall, I enjoyed how Strayed weaved her advice through stories. It humanizes the advice-seeker and Sugar, and I think that's why her column was, and continues to be, so successful. I liked how Sugar/Strayed pointed to the question to help the person asking for advice find the answer they were looking for within the question or even provoking new questions to help guide the writer reflect and come to a solution on their own. Sugar was never an entity that had all the answers, and that's also how life is. Not one single person has all of the answers for us, and that's something I think this book emphasizes and something I'm still learning.
I watched the Hulu adaptation as well for Tiny Beautiful Things. I definitely preferred the book, but the acting by Kathryn Hahn, who plays a character inspired by Cheryl, and the rest of the cast was absolutely incredible. I feel like this show depicted raw human emotion at the realest it could be, and I really appreciated that.
Have you read or watched Tiny Beautiful Things? Did you prefer the show or the book? Let me know!
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