67 pages • 2 hours read
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
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Preface, Introduction, and Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “It Was Always Only Us”
Preface to the 10th-Anniversary Edition (2022)
Content Warning: This section discusses substance abuse, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse.
Strayed believes that “literature’s greatest superpower” is to make us feel less alone with the ups and downs of the human condition (2). She began writing Dear Sugar anonymously for The Rumpus in 2010 and found that the work took on deep resonance for her, as she connected to readers’ problems on a personal level.
Introduction Summary: “I Was Sugar Once: Lessons in Radical Empathy” by Steve Almond
Strayed’s cohost of the podcast Dear Sugars was initially the voice of Sugar on The Rumpus. However, he acknowledges that he was incompetent at the job and credits Strayed with saving the column, given her willingness to share her personal stories and so be vulnerable. In doing so, she went against the unspoken code of advice columnists to remain anonymous and focus on the letter writer.
Almond argues that Strayed’s brand of radical empathy is essential in consumerist America, where loneliness has reached epidemic proportions. Tiny Beautiful Things offers both solace and the reminder that one can find meaning in even the most painful events. For Almond, Sugar is the best kind of mother, offering “enough compassion to make us feel safe within our broken need, and enough wisdom to hold on to hope” (7).
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