Review copy provided by the publisher.
Some of you already know this about me and some probably don’t: I love advice columns. Love love love them. I love to find out how people frame their problems, who they approach, what that person has to say, whether it’s by way of solution or meditation. Brammer is an advice columnist, with the same title for his column as for this book, and that’s how he’s learned to organize memoir writing: around questions of what to do and how to do it.
His prose voice is comfortable and friendly, and this book is short enough that having it structured as an essay per quite-general question from the advice-seeker reader doesn’t have time to wear thin. Brammer is entirely willing to go personal about identity, race, sexuality, mental health, and all the things that orbit those major topics. His personal stories are vivid and compelling, and it’s a fast read even for slower readers than I am.