2 minute read
Book Review: “Let’s Talk About Hard Things”
by Anna Sale
Review by Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez, LLC
Don’t even go there. That’s a sore subject, and you’re not gonna talk about it. You really don’t want to even think about it, much less articulate your thoughts. Forget it, it’s done, over, finished. Give it some time – or read “Let’s Talk About Hard Things” by Anna Sale, and how about now? Like many couples who marry and then divorce, it was obvious that Anna Sale and her first husband simply grew apart. They just “didn’t want the same thing anymore.” Notifying friends and family was hard, as was the healing, but once Sale started to pull her life together again, she realized that there was an opportunity here. To her bosses, she proposed the idea of a radio program dedicated to talking “about the things that mattered most in life but that we talked about least.” Death, Sex & Money was born, and this book came from that. Though we are at the tail-end of a pandemic, for example, we still feel awkward about death, in part because we’ve had to change the way we grieve. We’ve lost so much and so many that it’s hard to imagine how our forebears perceived death as “sad, and it was natural” and then, though they grieved, they seemed to move on surprisingly quickly. So how do we get past that don’t-knowwhat-to-say phase to appropriately say what helps? Think before you speak. Don’t tell a bereaved person to “let me know if you need anything” because, let’s face it, they won’t. Understand that there’s a right way to acknowledge the truth of an impending death. Avoid pretending that death “didn’t happen.” Learn to “step through the awkwardness” when talking about sex, and ask for what you need. Before having a money talk with someone, understand and be able to state your own thoughts about money. Listen more than you speak when talking with family. And when someone tells you who they are, where they’re from, and how they identify, remember that a few sentences are not the end of the conversation. You can make a hundred well-meaning casseroles. You can lay there and think of England. You can raise your eyebrows and be parsimonious, but when are you going to actually say something that means something? So how about now, with “Let’s Talk About Hard Things.” Start by being prepared to put sentiments together by yourself. Author Anna Sale doesn’t offer advice here, or even a list of Things to Utter. There’s not even a clearcut plan of action; instead, you’ll mostly find anecdotes and been-there-donethats in this book, which makes it seem more like a biography than advice so why read it? Answer: if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re tongue-tied and feeling useless, you don’t want it to happen again. Those stories will teach you for the next time. Chatty, genuine, and open, this book is for gluing together relationships and hearts and avoiding those socially squirmy moments. If that’s your aim, then reading “Let’s Talk About Hard Things” should be almost unavoidable.
Author Anna Sale
