Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan; A Review

Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan is a memoir centered around twelve of the hardest things for a person to say.  Some of these things include “tell me more,” “good enough,” “i love you” and “I don’t know.”  But the book is mostly about Corrigan process of grieving for her father and friend.  Tell Me More is a candid look at life, death and motherhood.  I’m going to get this out of the way; I did not like this book.  According to Goodreads that is an unpopular opinion, but I would not recommend it.  That is not to say that it wasn’t moving.  Corrigan’s ode to her friend and father are so touching, and the chapter of “Onward” broke my heart as it is a letter to her friend after her death.  However, I found the writing irritating at times, and the tone condescending.  The tone in the first three chapters drove me crazy, but it definitely got better and better as I continued reading.  Did the extremely emotional moving bits make up for the writing or the terrible first chapter, for me no.

Let’s talk about what I found bad first.  I found out about this book from Instagram.  If you want to read about how I found this book, you can do so here.  So, I thought this book was going to be a flop after reading the first two chapters.  The first chapter is about Corrigan’s children fighting all the time, and while I appreciate that this may be more relatable to a mother, it wasn’t anything I would want to read about.  The writing was tedious; there’s a few pages where Corrgian just talks about her family’s likes and characteristics which again I could see as relatable, but it felt SO tedious to read.

The second chapter was the one where I thought, ‘should I put down this book?’  The first part is about a facial, and the tone with which Corrigan portrayed herself in conversation was so condescending.  In this conversation she feels the need to denounce the expensive skincare industry by saying that she worked at a non-profit for many years and that if you don’t think about frivolous things like skincare than you have time to think about bigger things.  Everything about that conversation felt rude and turned me off right away.  Especially because this book is meant to in part be advice.  Any hint of superiority turns me off because I believe that being wise also comes with humility.  But that tone was only in that one chapter.

The writing was also not great.  There were a lot of cliques, and a lot of listing things.  On example of the circular writing was this sentence; “Lives don’t last; they thrill and confound and circle and overflow and disappear because it’s like this, having a life.”  It very much sounds like someone trying to convey a feeling of the complexity of life, but it also doesn’t say anything.  Some examples of other lines that bothered me include “Tish and her healer hands were going to change my face-possibly my life” and “thinking my me thoughts.”  The writing honestly just drove me nuts with its stating of the obvious.

Where the book redeemed itself was the emotion in it.  You could really feel the grief that Corrigan felt over loosing her friend and her father.  When she wrote a letter to her friend about what happened after her death I was so touched.  Another strength was how she highlighted the beauty of an everyday life and routine.  Sometimes the emotion was enough to overlook the irritating writing, but not always.

So, I wouldn’t recommend this book.  When I was reading the ‘hardest things to say’ I felt like they were self explanatory, and some even contradicted each other like “yes” and “no.”  I read memoirs to learn something about everyday life, and I felt like this book stated the obvious a lot.  Of course grieving over a lost love one is difficult, and of course it is hard to raise children and of course it is hard to own up to mistakes.  Instead I recommend memoirs like Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver and A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel if you are looking for memoirs about the beauty of everyday life.