CHERYL STRAYED is the author of the number-one New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which has sold more than four million copies worldwide and was made into an Oscar-nominated major motion picture. Tiny Beautiful Things was adapted as a play that has been staged in theaters across the country and as a Hulu television series airing in 2023. Cheryl is also the author of Brave Enough, which brings together more than one hundred of her inspiring quotes, and the debut novel Torch. She has hosted two hit podcasts, Sugar Calling and Dear Sugars. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
“Penning an advice column for the literary website The Rumpus,
[Strayed] worked anonymously, using the pen name Sugar, replying to
letters from readings suffering everything from loveless marriages
to abusive, drug-addicted brothers to disfiguring illnesses. The
result: intimate, in-depth essays that not only took the letter
writer’s life into account but also Strayed’s. Collected in a book,
they make for riveting, emotionally charged reading (translation:
be prepared to bawl) that leaves you significantly wiser for the
experience. . . . Moving. . . . compassionate.” —Leigh
Newman, Oprah.com
“A fascinating blend of memoir and self-help. Strayed is an
eloquent storyteller, and her clear-eyed prose offers a bracing
empathy absent from most self-help blather.” —Nora Krug, The
Washington Post
“Strayed’s worldview—her empathy, her nonjudgment, her belief in
the fundamental logic of people’s emotions and experiences despite
occasional evidence to the contrary—begins to seep into readers’
consciousness in such a way that they can apply her generosity of
spirit to their own and, for a few hours at least, become better
people. . . . The book’s disclosures—on the part of both the writer
and her correspondents—is ultimately courageous and engaging
stuff.” —Anna Holmes, New York Times Book Review
“Wise and compassionate.” —Gregory Cowles, New York Times Book
Review “Inside the List”
“It seems inadequate to call ‘Dear Sugar’ an advice column, because
it exists in a category all its own . . . Part memoir, part essay
collection, the aptly titled Tiny Beautiful Things gathers together
stunningly written pieces on everything from sex to love to the
agonies of bereavement. Strayed offers insights as exquisitely
phrased as they are powerful, confronting some of the biggest and
most painful of life’s questions. . . . . In her responses, Strayed
shines a torch of insight and comfort into the darkness of these
people’s lives, cutting to the heart of what it means to love, to
grieve and to suffer.” —Ilana Teitelbaum, Shelf
Awareness
“What makes a great advice columnist? . . . Strayed has proved
during her tenure at the website the Rumpus, where she has helmed
the Dear Sugar column since 2010, that the only requirement is that
you give great advice—tender, frank, uplifting and unrelenting.
Strayed’s columns, now collected as Tiny Beautiful Things, advise
people on such diverse struggles as miscarriage, infidelity,
poverty and addiction, and it's really hard to think of anyone
better at the job. Strayed has succeeded largely because she
shares personal, often heartbreaking stories from her own life in
answering readers' questions. Her experiences are qualifications,
in a sense, as Strayed has taken the wisdom she gained from
personal tragedies, including her mother's early death and the
breakup of her first marriage, and generously applied it to all
manner of issues. . . . What runs through all the columns, which
range from a few hundred to a few thousand words in length, is
Strayed’s gift at panning out from the problem in question. Often,
the fuller picture that Strayed gives us illustrates what needs to
happen for the letter-writers to change, to pull themselves out of
their current predicament, to see things in a different way,
to act. . . . Here is Strayed’s breathtaking ability to get to
the core of her own failures and triumphs, which she often does
through surprising and sharp imagery. . . . Strayed has covered
much ground in these transformative pieces. In the end, Tiny
Beautiful Things serves as a guide for anyone who is lost, and
those who only think they might be.” —Liz Colville, San
Francisco Chronicle
“As Sugar, Strayed addresses questions about love, family,
addition, grief, abuse, afflictions, fears, friends, gossip, among
other topics—and in each of her answers, without fail, she meets
the letter writers with a kind of startling compassion; what Steve
Almond termed ‘radical empathy.’ Dear Sugar is an advice column
like no other.” —Nika Knight, Full Stop
“It is very rarely that I am a ridiculous fangirl about anything.
It’s so emotionally taxing, so inherently undignified, that I try
not to fall into the trap. So it took me by surprise when, upon
discovering Dear Sugar at the Rumpus, I gradually fell down the
rabbit hole into ridiculous fangirlishness for the first time in
years. [Strayed took me to] the edge of the dark wood, staring into
the place where the most wrenching and lovely truths reside. A
place to lose your heart and find it again. If there is a common
thread that unites the columns, it’s work. Sugar doesn’t tolerate
laziness: doing the work to reach one’s full potential, to write
that novel, to exorcise ghosts, to let go of resentments and
jealousy and commit instead to generosity and love—all of these are
sacred, lifelong tasks for which there are no shortcuts. The
columns are a gift, and so too is the book. As Sugar herself bids
in her column of the same name, I've written this now on the eve of
her book’s publication with one intent: to say thank you.” —Ilana
Teitelbaum, The Huffington Post
“Typically an advice column might not be the first thing to come to
mind when considering examples of fearless first-person writing.
But Cheryl’s Dear Sugar column is a major exception in that way. In
the majority of her column entries, she boldly delves into her own
life, to places where she’s had to overcome obstacles similar to
those her letter-writers have experienced. Her understanding and
compassion are real and hard won, rooted in her own experiences.
And so is her sometimes butt-kicking advice. ‘If I was able to do
this,’ she seems to be saying, ‘so can you, sweet pea. Now get off
your ass and do it.’ The stakes may have seemed lower when she was
writing the column anonymously. But Cheryl says she always knew
she’d eventually reveal herself—which she did in April. Now many of
her best Dear Sugar columns have been gathered into Tiny Beautiful
Things, a collection that goes on sale this week (and is available
through The Rumpus). Her name is on it; the revelations, the
fearless admissions are hers. And I’m awed.” —Sari Botton, The
Rumpus
“Sugar didn’t pen a few plucky paragraphs about how to pick
yourself up by your socks and move on from whatever horrors befell
you—in many cases Sugar’s letters were heart-rending exhumations of
her own past in search of parallels to the advice-seeker’s
situation. She didn’t shy from plumbing her own failings, flaws,
and troubles. But in the end, Sugar’s columns are about heart and
love. Not saccharine, treacly love that comes from greeting cards,
but the gritty, painful, sometimes mundane work it takes to love
yourself, warts and all. Tiny Beautiful Things isn’t really a
compilation of her advice columns. More, it’s a series of essays
about life in all its grimy, unpleasant heartache, and a plea to
rise above it to love truthfully and deeply and well, despite all
our handicaps. Sugar navigates the path through the treacherous
human psyche as a shining beacon before us, flickering in the dark.
. . . [She] gives her best, even when she’s tired. . . . I’m
glad that the world is learning about all the love that Sugar has
to give.” —Quenby Moone, The Nervous Breakdown
“Strong, smart and self-assured: those qualities are in full power
in [Tiny Beautiful Things]. Strayed doesn’t just give good advice.
People write in with the most wrenching personal problems, and
receive generous, seriously motivating inspiration to move on and
do better. . . . Dear Sugar is a rare hideout from the prevailing
meanness of the Internet. She calls her readers Sweet Peas, shares
stunningly intimate stories about her life, and writes with true
warmth and kindness. And it’s not an act. . . . Strayed aims to
help not just the people whose letters she answers, but the wider
audience who reads the exchanges. Her responses are direct and
personal, but peppered with universal messages that cut to the
heart.” —Amy Goetzman, MinnPost
“Why do we read memoirs? Some choose autobiographies to better
understand the lives and histories of important men and women. Some
might hope that the experiences and insights of a personal essay
might unveil a small truth about the human condition, might teach
us about ourselves. Some of us might just be busybodies, looking
for a socially acceptable way to peek deeply into a stranger’s
life. If you fit into any of these categories, you must meet Dear
Sugar, the ultimate advice columnist for lovers of memoirs. Tiny
Beautiful Things is a collection of her works, interspersed with
Q&As from Sugar herself. The columns were written anonymously,
but with an amount of personal detail that no advice column has
ever seen before. In a gracious, sassy, poetic and maternal voice,
Sugar shares her own raw personal accounts . . . She runs a
highlighter over the breathtaking aspects of mundane tasks, from
wedding planning to the day-to-day duties of raising small
children. By the last page of the book, which will likely be a bit
wrinkled with tear stains by the time you’re through, you may know
more about Sugar than you know about your closest friends. . .
.Though many of the letters she receives contain ugliness and woe,
she weaves them together into a story that is unexpectedly
beautiful and impossibly warm. There’s no shortage of conversations
on love and sex, but we words also go beyond that. . . . There’s
something worth quoting on almost every page. . . . Eloquent . . .
Generous.” —Kara Zuaro, Biogrophile
“In this collection of her columns, Strayed proves herself to be an
astute amateur psychologist, as well as a compassionate, thoughtful
and occasionally tough counselor. As with all personal advice
columns, the questions that readers pose to Sugar are at least as
intriguing as the answers. Strayed . . . uses her own foibles and
misdemeanors to show that ‘we all suffer, we all fail, we all
struggle and triumph and struggle again.’” —Cynthia Crossen, The
Wall Street Journal
“Strayed has a special talent for glimmering, golden turns of
phrase that seem to hold all the promise and hope in the
world—they’re Bible verses for a secular audience—but these are not
the sort of mottos that you’ll find on, say, motivational posters
on Pintrest. . . . Most remarkable has been Strayed’s willingness
to use her own story, to revisit her most hopeless, fumbling
moments—from drug use to infidelity—in answering readers’
questions. . . . The magic is in these unexpected connections, her
ability to make the specific universal. She refers to letter
writers as ‘sweet pea’ and ‘honey bun,’ but never lets them off the
hook. No matter how tragic their predicament, she exhorts them to
be their ‘best, most gigantic self,’ that ‘every last one of us can
do better than give up.’ It is tough, smart, real love.” —Tracy
Clark-Flory, Salon
“To say that Cheryl Strayed is an Internet advice columnist does
not do her justice. Tiny Beautiful Things is a gob-smacking high, a
brilliant reinvention of the Miss Lonelyhearts genre. . . . This
collection of poignant insights into the complexities of the human
heart offers a form of radical empathy and inspired compassion from
a fellow traveler—one who not only feels the pain of others but
leads them toward light and art.” —Elizabeth Taylor, The Chicago
Tribune
“The problem with advice columnists [was that] they were supposed
to help you solve your problems, but they didn’t reveal much about
their own lives, so it was hard to understand why you should trust
them. Cheryl Strayed changed all that with Dear Sugar, a deeply
personal advice column that’s earned a devoted following.
Beautifully written . . . honest and forthright. . . poignant
and personal, unlike the string of clichés other writers throw at
readers. She proves real connection is still possible, even on the
Internet, where everyone’s shouting to be heard. She delivers tough
love, very gently. There’s a lesson in here for everyone, sweet
peas. You just have to find yours. Grade: A” —Melissa Maerz,
Entertainment Weekly
“When I was younger, the Dear Ann and Dear Abby columns that ran in
newspapers offered a fascinating look at other people's problems.
Eventually, though, the advice coming from pseudonymous writers
felt distanced and staid, especially compared to the next
generation of advisers who staked out the alternative papers and
web sites. . . . My current favorite, by far, is “Dear Sugar,”
written by Cheryl Strayed. . . . Tiny Beautiful Things collects
Strayed’s columns, and it perfectly captures why she has completely
won me over. Strayed can be profane, but she offers sympathy, sound
advice, gentleness and a surprising amount of confession.” —Vikas
Turakhia, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A good psychoanalyst does two things: she listens, and she
dissects. In Tiny Beautiful Things, Strayed does both adeptly.
Sugar forces us to swallow sometimes painful realizations about
what we want, who we are, and what we therefore must do—or, if not
that, the choices we must make. She also lays bare the
impossibility of controlling what isn’t ours to control. . . . The
honesty is far more comforting than shallow promises would be.
Sugar can handle what’s real in us. . . . If she can handle our
treacherous secrets without disintegrating, maybe others will
accept us in our entirety, too. Maybe we can accept ourselves. . .
. Sugar seems to have had more experiences than any human we’ve
ever met, like some sort of omniscient goddess. . . . These stories
are not written for their own sake, but as a way to explain human
complexity. The details of her past theft comes out as a means of
empathizing with a writer ashamed of the same. Sugar describes her
husband’s infidelity to help a fiancée with a stark,
black-and-white view of marriage consider nuance. This is the type
of meaning-making any personal essayist or memoirist should aim
for, of course—and, notably, Strayed is both—but it’s all the more
explicit and obvious in an advice column. Strayed’s story is, in
its way, a mirror. One of Strayed’s most vital messages—which her
revelations of past lapses are meant to show—is that being a real,
whole person means being imperfect. Sugar models this not only in
her history, but in her letters, too. Once in a while, she falters.
. . . Sugar is good enough, but not perfect. Which is exactly what
she’s been trying to tell us all along.” —Jessica Gross, The
Millions
“Many of the pieces in Tiny Beautiful Things, which first appeared
in the online literary magazine The Rumpus, have had robust first
lives, circulated on the Internet by fans. In book form, the
letters and Strayed’s responses take on greater meaning as an
extended epistolary essay on the human condition—with its antsy
spouses, frustrated parents and desperately indebted students—and
also as a companion autobiography to Wild. Sugar’s technique is to
share the thorniest, most indelible experiences from her life to
help each letter writer work through his or her own, which makes
Tiny Beautiful Things an odd, contradictory and moving invention:
an anecdotal memoir—that most narcissistic of genres—whose every
chapter is written lovingly and generously to someone else. . . .
Sugar is sharp-witted, but she doesn’t do funny. She doesn’t do
snarky. (This distinguishes her from, to state it conservatively,
most of the Internet.) And Sugar doesn’t coddle. She especially
doesn’t coddle writers. . . . Stillness pervades Strayed’s Dear
Sugar columns, which profit from all the advantages of the
Internet—its anonymous e-mail forms, endless terrain and capacity
for comments and community building—but provide refuge from its
white noise. It’s partly because of the emotional content of each
letter and response, but also due to the inherent intimacy of the
form. Direct address is as old as lyric poetry: it’s just I and
you—and the rest of the world gets to listen in.” —Radhika Jones,
Time Magazine
“Strayed, in this collection of advice (some previously
unpublished) for readers of her ‘Dear Sugar’ column on
therumpus.net, chooses thought-provoking questions from her readers
and listens deeply to their emotional content. In casually intimate
prose and with literary grace, she creates moments of wise,
compassionate insight in often startlingly personal miniature
memoirs, cradling gentle but practical guidance with enough humor
to cement Strayed’s presence as both a mentor and the most
understanding of friends. Sugar can be tough and honest, but she’s
never mean: in Sugar’s world, we all deserve love unconditionally,
but also owe it to ourselves to be the best, most authentic selves
we can be. For a regrounding in the beauty of what it means to be
flawed and gorgeously human, for answers that feel real, Strayed’s
caring essays offer surprisingly rich comfort.” —Publishers
Weekly (starred review)
“This beloved Internet advice columnist, using the pseudonym Sugar,
revealed herself in early 2012 to be the acclaimed novelist and
memoirist Strayed. First appearing on the Rumpus in 2010, her
column ‘Dear Sugar’ quickly attracted a large and devoted following
with its cut-to-the-quick aphorisms like ‘Write like a
motherf*cker’ and ‘Be brave enough to break your own heart.’ This
collection gathers up the best of Sugar, whose trademark is deeply
felt and frank responses grounded in her own personal experience;
in many ways, it is a portrait of Strayed herself. She answers
queries on subjects ranging from professional jealousy to leaving a
loved partner to coping with the death of a child. VERDICT: Part
advice, part personal essay, these pieces grapple with life’s
biggest questions. Beautifully written and genuinely wise, this
book is full of heartache and love. Highly recommended.” — Molly
McArdle, Library Journal (starred review)
“Strayed offers insight into the world of online advice through her
collection of letters sent to ‘Dear Sugar,’ her once-anonymous
column for the online magazine The Rumpus. Sugar’s Golden
Rule—‘Trust Yourself’—pushes the author and her readers to embrace
themselves and not be afraid of asking life’s complex questions. .
. . Strayed’s practical advice mixes with abundant personal
anecdotes in which she illustrates to the addressee the reasoning
behind her counsel. Admittedly not versed in psychology, her
responses are sensitive and comprehensive, and her self-reflection
projects understanding and sympathy. . . . The author’s comforting
yet stern writing style connects readers to each contributor’s
plight and the subsequent response to their cry for help. Appealing
to Dear Sugar fans and self-help seekers alike, this ‘collection of
intimate exchanges between strangers’ demonstrates that wisdom
doesn’t come only from age, but also from learning from the
experiences of others. A realistic and poignant compilation of the
intricacies of relationships.” —Kirkus Reviews
“These pieces are nothing short of dynamite, the kind of
remarkable, revelatory storytelling that makes young people want to
become writers in the first place. Over here at the Salon offices,
we're reading the columns with boxes of tissue and raised fists of
solidarity, shaking our heads with awe and amusement.” —Sarah
Hepola, Salon
“Sugar doesn't coddle her readers—she believes them, and
hears the stories inside the story they think they want to tell.
She manages astonishing levels of empathy without dissolving into
sentiment, and sees problems before the reader can. Sugar doesn't
promise to make anyone feel good, only that she understands a
question well enough to answer it.” —Sasha Frere-Jones, The New
Yorker critic
“Powerful and soulful, Tiny Beautiful Things is destined to become
a classic of the form, the sort of book readers will carry around
in purses and backpacks during difficult times as a token or
talisman because of the radiant wisdom and depth within.” —Aimee
Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“[Sugar is] turning the advice column on its head.” —Jessica
Francis Kane, author of The Report
“Sugar’s columns are easily the most beautiful thing I’ve read all
year. They should be taught in schools and put on little slips of
paper and dropped from airplanes, for all to read.” —Meakin
Armstrong, Guernica editor
“Dear Sugar will save your soul. I belong to the Church of Sugar.”
—Samantha Dunn, author of Failing Paris
“Charming, idiosyncratic, luminous, profane. . . . [Sugar] is
remaking a genre that has existed, in more or less the same form,
since well before Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts first put a
face on the figure in 1933. . . . Her version of tough love ranges
from hip-older-sister-loving to governess-stern. Sugar shines out
amid the sea of fakeness.” —Ruth Franklin, The New Republic
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