Guest review by Janelle Bailey, retired Literature teacher.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Having picked up a signed copy of this book in an adorable, well-stocked, and well-staffed bookshop in Waterbury, Vermont, last December, I have been just waiting for the “right” time to read this book ever since. It was supposed to be our April book club selection, but we pushed it off until May to read the more timely right instead for April Wisconsin author’s From Borsch to Burgers: A Cross-Cultural Memoir by Ukrainian American Ruslana Westerlund. And Ruslana joined our April book club meeting. It was all just as it should have been!

So this became my next read.

And then I started to get texts from book club friends indicating that this book was (IS!) amazing. I was especially compelled by the number of them that came in succession from one particular member and now also far more than that and a FRIEND, a true friend, very much of the type that Ann and Sooki become for each other in the title essay in this very book.

Her texts urged me to pick it up and right now. And so I did. And then there were other things that were just simply divine about that timing, including but not limited to:

–my having posted that VERY morning a review of Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads, though I had actually read it and written my first review more than a week prior. And by golly, Patchett’s essay (how in the world?!) made a statement about Franzen himself that, although not her point or purpose completely, helped me wrestle through a niggling discomfort I retained about the book, even after finishing my somewhat waffly review.

–learning that Patchett owns a bookstore…I did not know!

–learning that that bookstore is in Nashville (and these two points gleaned merely from the jacket) and that one can order signed copies of books–requesting inscription from Patchett on hers, even–directly from her bookstore (O.M.Goodness)

–(ARGH!) having been through Nashville in March and denied (I acquiesced amenably, actually) a bookstore stop by my husband and youngest daughter (YES! I do have enough books and can easily get more and don’t need any right now, and yes we are in a hurry to complete another 6–actually more–hours of driving today; AND it wasn’t even Ann Patchett’s bookstore that was on my radar–so it’s all okay…THIS time! ((Next time we’ll schedule our trip through more appropriately! Or I’ll go there separately…)))

–Patchett’s brilliance

–her honesty and sincerity; her personal brand of humility; her writing craft; more

–the value of the essence of nearly every single essay in this collection and my inability to find a single one that I would not read again or that could have been omitted; every single one of them is of importance and value and merit

–that she feels about some things EXACTLY as I do and about others very differently, but I never felt offended nor defeated in those disagreements and just want to, gosh…go for a long walk with her, sip some tea, do some yoga, maybe map out how many books we have both read and doodle about them or something

Given all that is going on in the world and right now, I tend to feel overwhelmed and sometimes alone, in thinking that nobody “gets it” quite like I do and/or I am just not able to “do” enough.  Reading this book made me, quite honestly, feel better. AND: it made me think that I, too, could still become a writer myself afterall. Though the craft is still rocket science or comparable, the subject(s) here are both simple and complex but also the very things I’d like to write about: where I have been (amazing places), what I have done (ordinary things that seem extraordinary at times in reflection), whom I have met (family to famous and a lot of new FRIENDS made in the process), etc.

Please: read this one and tell me if you don’t also want to just meet Ann Patchett in your pjs and chitchat, catch up and for as long as it takes. Truly, if you read and tell me it was “meh” for you, we’ll probably still have a good talk, and we’ll learn some important things about each other. And if you tell me you loved it and similarly, we’ll also have a good talk…and then hopefully many more of those as well.