GROUP

How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
by Christie Tate

I had wanted to read Christie Tate’s Group for a while.  Reviewers compared it to Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, a book about a psychotherapist’s experience being in therapy herself, that I enjoyed immensely and recommended to you in a previous L & L Review.  (And my co-editor praised in a Second Helping.) Reese Witherspoon selected Group for her book club.  Although I was nervous that the book couldn’t possibly live up to its hype, I can happily recommend Group with the highest praise.

Tate, a professional writer, had been living what looked like a charmed life.  But underneath her outward achievements (ie she was the top student in her law-school class), she fought an eating disorder, was unable to form close relationships and, most troubling, fantasized about her own death.  Encouraged by an acquaintance to seek out group therapy, she joined a group, terrified of what it might entail.

Tate bravely and unabashedly recounts her experiences in her group sessions with a brutal honesty that both shocks and endears her to the reader.  Bringing her therapist and other group members to life for us, we make the seemingly impossible journey with her from crippling insecurity to truly owning her life.  Amazingly, with a subject so serious and heavy, Tate writes with humor, compassion and clarity.  

I could not put this book down.  Read it.  You will love it too. (Liz)