A dizzingly delightful concoction, this memoir is meant to lead by failure & success both. I reveled in Schuster’s (aka T$) encouragements. She is ready in every chapter to admit how she ended up there, inexcusably hungover and covered in some of her vomit, and equally ready to say “hey I know I was a mess, but I want to help you like my friends helped me, so have you tried ___??” What I admire about this book over other self-help bestsellers I won’t name is that Schuster is not ignoring the validity of mental illness as an obstacle. She has been on medication for years for depression and anxiety and while she lays out long lists of guidelines to create rituals that will better oneself, she has included notes about how it’s ok to not follow them to the letter all the time. One notable chapter is her discussion of alcohol consumption and how despite her calling for no drinking on Sundays (because Mondays are hard enough without feeling the effects of one too many glasses of wine) she drank on that Sunday the week she was writing about it.

So really, hers is a book I’d put into the hands of any of my girlfriends (the one so-so part is that on romantic relationships because it slants heavily towards heterosexual coupling, but it really is 80% her memoir and at least she’s not trying to teach what she doesn’t have experience in), knowing that they will get something out of it and hopefully push themselves to buy the damn lilies already. She doesn’t need that promotion to afford them or a husband to do it for her, respecting and loving yourself is too important not to splurge sometimes just because the flowers are too pretty to pass up. My “lilies” are books and I perhaps treat myself too often, but her message is clear. When the plane is going down, even the mother in the instructional video will put on her mask before her child’s. You cannot take care of others, your family or coworkers, no matter, unless you are already taking care of yourself. So whether or not you have also woken up after a raucous birthday night out to several voicemails from your therapist who is concerned for your well-being based on messages YOU left for her but can no longer remember— it’s ok, you can pick up this book to get a laugh and a little bit of a guidance and a whole lot of relief that it’s ok to mess up and there are people, Tara Schuster included, who care about you getting yourself back on track.