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Book Summary and Reviews of Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan

Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan

Tell Me More

Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say

by Kelly Corrigan

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  • Published:
  • Jan 2018, 240 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A story-driven collection of essays on the twelve powerful phrases we use to sustain our relationships, from the New York Times bestselling author of Glitter and Glue and The Middle Place

It's a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love and connection possible. But that's just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here. In her New York Times bestselling memoirs, Corrigan distilled our core relationships to their essences, showcasing a warm, easy storytelling style. Now, in Tell Me More, she's back with a deeply personal, unfailingly honest, and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases that turn the wheel of life.

In "I Don't Know," Corrigan wrestles to make peace with uncertainty, whether it's over invitations that never came or a friend's agonizing infertility. In "No," she admires her mother's ability to set boundaries and her liberating willingness to be unpopular. In "Tell Me More," a facialist named Tish teaches her something important about listening. And in "I Was Wrong," she comes clean about her disastrous role in a family fight - and explains why saying sorry may not be enough. With refreshing candor, a deep well of empathy, and her signature desire to understand "the thing behind the thing," Corrigan swings between meditations on life with a preoccupied husband and two mercurial teenage daughters to profound observations on love and loss.

With the streetwise, ever-relatable voice that defines Corrigan's work, Tell Me More is a moving and meaningful take on the power of the right words at the right moment to change everything.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Moving and deeply personal, Corrigan's portraits of love and loss urge readers to speak more carefully and hold on tighter to the people they love." - Kirkus

"[A] brisk and moving memoir...The essays are impactful, and Corrigan offers solid wisdom throughout." - Publishers Weekly

"It is such a comfort just knowing that Kelly Corrigan exists: she is somehow both wise and self-deprecating; funny but unafraid of pain; frank but gentle. She is the sister/mother/best friend we all wish we could have - and because of this big-hearted book, we all get to." - Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply

"With full-bodied humor and radical sensitivity, Kelly Corrigan transforms the mundane pain of life into a necessary spiritual text of sorts, one that reminds us that we have the right to grieve but the obligation to be grateful. This book will remind you that you are human - and of the fragile loveliness of being so." - Lena Dunham

"Kelly Corrigan takes on all the big, difficult questions here, with great warmth and courage." - Glennon Doyle

This information about Tell Me More was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cathryn Conroy

Kelly Corrigan Is Courageous! Deeply Private and Brutally Honest Story-Essays About Living Her Life
Kelly Corrigan is a courageous woman.

In this collection of very personal essays, she tells deeply private stories about herself, many of which don't cast her in a positive light. As she herself says in the "Reading Group Guide" at the end of the book, the stories show "how foolish, selfish, and tiresome I can be." Usually when we tell total strangers our life story, we gussy it up a bit. Not Kelly Corrigan. She is brutally honest—so much so that when I read some of these story-essays, I didn't like her very much. And then I remembered how courageous she is for sharing this way, stripping away the fake veneer and showing us who she is and the lessons she has learned.

The 12 hardest things Corrigan is learning to say are also the 12 hardest things we ALL must learn to say. From admitting "I don't know" to "I was wrong" and from lovingly saying "tell me more" to "I love you," this is almost a guidebook of how to use what you say to be a good human, a responsible human, a loving human.

The writing is magnificent. The story-essays are all intriguing. And the resounding messages—it's fine to say no sometimes, you really are good enough even when you mess up big time, and grief is hard work—aren't based on cheesy 1970s inspirational posters but rather Corrigan's hard-earned life experiences.

Just know this: The first chapter, titled "It's Like This," is difficult to read. Corrigan is in the throes of grieving for her beloved father, and she takes out her denial, anger, and sadness about his death on those she loves best, including herself. For anyone who has ever experienced intense grief, this chapter will resonate. Just know going in that this is not the tone of the rest of the 11 story-essays.

Read it and then share it with a friend. It's that kind of book.

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Author Information

Kelly Corrigan

Kelly Corrigan has been called "the voice of her generation" by O: The Oprah Magazine and "the poet laureate of the ordinary" by HuffPost. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Middle Place, Lift, and Glitter and Glue. She is also the creative director of The Nantucket Project and host of their conversation series about what matters most. She lives near Oakland, California, with her husband, Edward Lichty, and her daughters, Georgia and Claire.

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