Loved it!

This gem is our October book club pick and I’m pretty sure no one will complain about struggling to get through it.

“I Miss You When I Blink” by Mary Laura Philpott is a memoir told in a collection of essays that are equally hilarious and touching. If you’d like a short sample of her work, this essay (“I’m So Excited for the 40th grade”) was in the NY Times recently.

After reading her book, I think many women will feel seen and heard.

In the first few chapters, I got so tickled reading MLP’s description of herself as a young girl, constantly striving for the best grades – the best EVERYTHING – it reminded me of Tracy Flick in the 1999 dark comedy “Election” starring Reese Witherspoon.

Let me say right now, I am not a Type A personality or a perfectionist. I do however, have loved ones who are, so reading her perspective and experience was incredibly eye-opening. And uproariously funny!

“Mary Laura Philpott is relentlessly funny, self-effacing and charming as she tells the story of living as a triple-A-plus-perfectionist. Everything in her life is done on time and exactly right, until, of course, it all starts to fall apart. In her willingness to tell her own story she taps into a universal truth for so many women: we plan to do it all until we find we can’t do anything anymore. I Miss You When I Blink made me laugh, it made me cry, I miss it already.”

–Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth, The Dutch House, Bel Canto

It’s worth noting that Ann Patchett owns indie bookstore, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, and Mary Laura Philpott was the “book enthusiast at large” for Parnassus Books as well as the founding editor of MUSING, the digital magazine.

I found these essays to be just what the Book Doctor ordered after reading some challenging and difficult works of literary fiction the past few months.

Please let me know what YOU think about this book.

Happy Reading!