A book for the sparsely parented among us, this book aims to help readers "re-parent" themselves. It covers matters such as lessening negative self-talk, seizing opportunities, avoiding leaning on substances, best handling relationships, introducing an exercise program into your life - a wide variety of subjects, at least one of which is destined to speak to a problem that the reader faces.

Tara Schuster

Taking care of yourself through eating well, not muting our lives with drugs including alcohol, getting enough sleep, and nurturing relationships, makes for a much happier life. Tara Schuster has done something remarkable: She’s written a guide to facing the slings and arrows of life that’s both delightfully irreverent and disarmingly earnest. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you might just come away stronger and better.”

I also really liked the "I'm in this with you" tone to the book. Part of it could be defined as a memoir as she takes you through some of her own experiences and, most importantly, what she learned from them. There's a definite "things don't have to be as hard for you as they were for me" kind of sentiment to the book that makes it incredibly relatable and approachable. As a current VP at Comedy Central, I think I would have been much more interested in a job-related book from her - one that explains her career steps in-depth, because I feel like that sort of information would have been much more valuable, and I probably would have taken that more seriously. I identified with a lot of what Tara had to say. The tumultuous childhood she had was nuts. The most nutty thing were the unimaginably cruel voice mails her estranged mother would leave her after her parents separated and the mother took the younger sister, leaving Tara with her dad. So, even though I’ve had ups and downs with my own mom, it made me appreciate that we do have a good, if not always easy, relationship.

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A lot of the book comes off a bit elitist, to be honest. When someone says they went to a really nice private school, followed by Brown University, and then flippantly states how "poor" they were, it irks me to no end. There are moments when the author realizes her privilege, but most of the time, I think the things she has to say come off as incredibly tone deaf. Brutally honest, often hilarious, hard-won lessons in learning to love and care for yourself from a young vice president at Comedy Central who was called “ahead of her time” by Jordan PeeleI really enjoyed the first half of this. The author gives some great recommendations of methods to get yourself out of your own head and into some habits that will help you in the long run. I definitely want to take her up on at least a couple of her suggestions. I did not know much about Tara Schuster as a TV Executive but certainly know her work very well being involved in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Key & Peele. Her work with those shows helped their rise to popularity and its success. I loved to read about the personal life of very successful people and how they learned to manage the balance of their personal and professional life. The book was a great read and learned a lot from it and was able to take the advice to apply to my own personal life. I believe that other readers would be able to do the same as well. I found the read to be thoroughly thought provoking and admire the self-reflection as part of the book. I felt that the book was written with her heart on her sleeves and must be difficult to write these personal struggles for a very successful professional in the industry. I enjoy the honesty and that the book covered a wholistic approach to the mind, body and relationships, which are the most important to develop a healthy and happy life. This is essentially a self-help book by way of memoir. There’s a lot of good stuff in here. It’s always helpful to have a reminder to stop the negative thoughts about yourself—like that you’re a failure because you don’t have a boyfriend/the job you want/you aren’t working out or eating well enough and so on. For some of us, giving ourselves pep talks is not our natural state, but Tara reminds us: If your friend were in a similar situation, would you talk to her that way? This is a regurgitation of the most overworked lessons from late 80s Oprah from the whiniest, least circumspect voice one could possibly imagine. “Write thank you notes! Keep a gratitude journal! Ever heard of exercise? Turns out it’s great!

As a memoir, I think I would have better enjoyed this one. But as a pseudo self help-type book, it really missed the mark.However, Tara ultimately winds up promoting an inherently self-centred world. In that world, the “individual” seems required to “win” against any wider social and cultural imperative. The author, Tara Schuster, after years of therapy, spent a good amount of time working on trying to reparent herself, trying different methods. In this book, she shares different methods she suggests, along with her sense of humor throughout. I found it to be a kind of self help book with lots of ideas of things to try for changing the negative voice in your head, and just getting more positive about your life.