This book was read by Courtney Bippley, Reference Librarian at the Main Campus Library.

Title: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Author: Lori Gottlieb

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

Why did you choose to read this book?

The book got a bunch of buzz when it came out and I knew a couple other people who had read it and said it was good. Then, I read a few of Lori Gottlieb’s advice columns in The Atlantic to see if I liked her writing style. I did, so I brought the book home with me. The idea of reading about therapy from a therapist perspective was very intriguing. Don’t we all want a deeper understanding of how people work?

What did you like about it?

I really liked how honest the author is in this book. She is honest about her own struggles with behavior that is self-sabotaging and how she came to understand her own role in the break up that led to her going to therapy herself. 

The other characters in the book, her patients and her therapist, are all really interesting. They’ve been anonymized and various real patients were combined into the supporting characters. They feel very fleshed out with real issues and I fell in love with all of them. Even the ones I didn’t like in the beginning.

And, I’m not gonna lie. I cried reading this book. Multiple times. But, I would not call this a sad book at all. If anything, I think it is a book about hope, recognizing that we all struggle with similar things, and that it’s never too late to work toward becoming a better person.

Who would you recommend this book to?

Anyone who likes a good memoir. Anyone who has been in or is thinking about going to therapy. Anyone thinking about becoming a therapist of any kind. Anyone who likes to read about real people’s lives written and explained in what is both a contextually accurate and compassionate way. 

What would you pair this book with?

A box of tissues! Preferably the extra soft kind that moisturize your nose while you wipe away snot. Bonus points for having a novelty tissue box or one with punny sayings on it.