2020: This was such a good book. I had it recommended to me by two of my best friends, and it’s immediately going to the top of my “you gotta read this” list. Add it to your TBR now!

I absolutely loved Gottlieb’s candor and frankness throughout this book. Even though she sees this human fallibility everyday in her work as a therapist, she is the first one to admit that she makes the same choices and the same mistakes, because guess what: we are all human. Very interesting to hear from someone who has seen both sides of it.

All of the stories in the book are powerful and will hit you in different ways, but I was particularly struck by John’s. I was so over him after the first couple of chapters; his arrogance and unwillingness to be honest was infuriating, and I was cheering for Gottlieb to dump him. But his complete 180, and everything that was revealed after her phone call, urging him to come back to her office, was incredible. Gottlieb told his story in such a manner that I was completely taken by surprise, and cannot believe I ever disliked him as much as I did.

I loved her referencing thinkers and writers who I have not spent much time with since college (Frankl, Maslow, Kübler-Ross, Erikson, just to name a few) and I cannot wait to revisit them now. She also talks about my all time favorite psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi, who I had to wait for the second to last chapter to finally made an appearance, but I’m so happy he did.

I did cry a lot during this book, but they were all happy tears. I’m sure Julie would be happy that I have takeaways from her story. I don’t think I’ve ever cheered for a character to succeed harder than I was rooting for Rita. Thank you to Gottlieb for sharing some of their wisdom with us.