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"A gorgeous, darkly humorous memoir for readers of Cheryl Strayed about a woman overcoming dramatic …

Review of 'The rules do not apply' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A well-written and compelling memoir by the writer who is probably best known for her popular magazine piece about having a miscarriage while on assignment in Mongolia. That experience forms the centerpiece of the story, but the rest of her life is made equally interesting by the telling. As soon as I read the following passage in the first few pages, I knew this would be a book to which anyone who has had the rug pulled out from under his or her life -- myself included-- could strongly relate: "Until recently, I lived in a world where lost things could always be replaced. But it has been made overwhelmingly clear to me now that anything you think is yours by right can vanish, and what you can do about that is nothing at all. The future I thought I was meticulously crafting for years has disappeared, and with it have gone my ideas about the kind of life I'd imagined I was due."