I’m trying to get back into reading non-fiction. My ritual was to read non-fiction in my living room, and fiction before bed. I read Untamed, which was a great foray back into this ritual. At some point last year, one of my favorite book bloggers was absolutely raving about Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies. Thus, I immediately had to have it. Took me a while to get around to reading it.

The Premise

Brutally honest, often hilarious, hard-won lessons in learning to love and care for yourself from a young vice president at Comedy Central who was called “ahead of her time” by Jordan Peele.

By the time she was in her late twenties, Tara Schuster was a rising TV executive who had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and helped launch Key & Peele to viral superstardom. By all appearances, she had mastered being a grown-up. But beneath that veneer of success, she was a chronically anxious, self-medicating mess. No one knew that her road to adulthood had been paved with depression, anxiety, and shame, owing in large part to her minimally parented upbringing. She realized she’d hit rock bottom when she drunk-dialed her therapist pleading for help.

Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a “ninja of self-love.” Through simple, daily rituals, Tara transformed her mind, body, and relationships, and shows how to:

• fake gratitude until you actually feel gratitude
• excavate your emotional wounds and heal them with kindness
• identify your self-limiting beliefs, kick them to the curb, and start living a life you choose
• silence your inner frenemy and shield yourself from self-criticism
• carve out time each morning to start your day empowered, inspired, and ready to rule
• create a life you truly, totally f*cking LOVE

This is the book Tara wished someone had given her and it is the book many of us desperately need: a candid, hysterical, addictively readable, practical guide to growing up (no matter where you are in life) and learning to love yourself in a non-throw-up-in-your-mouth-it’s-so-cheesy way.

My Thoughts & Favorites

I gave Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies a solid four stars. There were a few chapters that really felt like they spoke to me, and plenty of others that didn’t feel quite as relevant. However, overall, it was a fun book to read.

Now, I had no idea who Tara Schuster was. Honestly, I still don’t. She writes for Key & Peele? She obviously wrote this book as well. Beyond that, she seems like a fairly normal girl, minus the Chanel bag she bought in Paris, which I found proof of, and it is absolutely beautiful.

This book is definitely cheeky. It’s not so much chapters of self help and motivation as it is rambling from and with your girlfriends. Sometimes you talk in circles, but you always understand each other. In addition, you use and say kind words, but also give each other a swift kick in the booty if needed.

One of my absolute favorite chapters was “Nobody Cares, At All. In Regard To Everything.” She talks about how we (as women and people in general) spend so much time worrying about what others think of us, how they perceive how we behave or the things we say. Then, she goes on to point out how much people just don’t care. I’m not doing the chapter justice, but it was something I really needed to “hear” (read).

Of course, the “title chapter” was amazing as well. If there’s something that makes you happy, do it or buy it. If you want a bouquet of daisies that cost $5, buy them. This week, I “treated myself” to $3.50 of guacamole at the grocery store. Granted, don’t go into debt for things. This does not mean that you should go out and buy the house or car your can’t afford, or blow your savings on something. However, those small purchases, go for it. $3.50 won’t make you rich in the long run/big picture.

One final takeaway I had from Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies was journaling. Tara talks about how cathartic and revealing journaling can be. It’s a habit that I’ve definitely gotten away from in the last couple of years (if it was ever actually a habit), and something I’m trying to get back into. I force myself to sit down and just write for 10 minutes straight. No distractions, just stream of consciousness. It hasn’t revealed anything yet, but there’s still time.

Now, would I recommend this book to my mother? No. Did I recommend it to my sister? Yes! It is a much more targeted audience than other books of a similar nature. Also, just how stinking beautiful is that cover?! Well done, Tara Schuster. Thanks for the kind words and amazing message. I owe you a thank you note. 😉

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