I am another newcomer to Cheryl Strayed via the Dear Sugar column. This was my first "real" CS book, and I knew going in that it was her first novel, and very autobiographical.

On the one hand, this is a really dark, harrowing, moving, emotional book. It's about a mother who dies of cancer at 38 and how her family falls apart and does horrible things to each other in the aftermath, and how they start to rebuild their lives and relationships afterwards. A funny fast-paced romp, great for the beach, this book is most assuredly not.

On the other hand: the writing is tremendous. From the pacing, to the structure (multiple 3rd person points of view), to the very real and very complicated characters, to individual sentences, this book is just beautifully crafted. As a writer, I want to sit down with this book and a pencil and deconstruct how it was put together. It was the glorious writing in this book that kept me reading, even as I put it aside every night saddened and unsure if I wanted to continue reading.

I can recommend it to writers. I'm not sure I can recommend it in general, because it is just so emotionally raw.