Buy Yourself The F*cking Lilies| WWS Book Club

Last Spring I wrote a blog post called Buy Yourself The Damn Flowers- having NO idea that this book existed. Fast forward to Christmas 2020, my mom had this book sitting under the tree for me. She said it was one of the first books she saw sitting on the shelf at Chapters when she was doing her Christmas shopping, and she had to get it for me. I was immediately drawn to the title since it was so similar to the blog post I had written. Great minds think alike, because I LOVED this book. I even decided to buy myself the f*cking plants (I’m a plant lady) for Valentine’s Day this year.

Buy Yourself The F*cking Lilies is a self help book written by Tara Schuster, based on her own life experiences and mishaps. It starts at her lowest point- drunk dialing her therapist after blacking out on her birthday, and takes us through her parent’s divorce and unstable childhood, breakups, career moves, etc- showing us how they shaped her, and advice on how to grow beyond the situations life throws at you.

“Do not look for the approval of someone you think will make you approve of yourself. Approve of yourself first, just as you are, and if you need support from others, trust the people who are in your corner.” - Tara Schuster

Writing & Tone

I loved Tara’s to the point and casual writing style. Every chapter felt like I was sitting down with a friend for a vent sesh, and it made it easy to keep reading without getting bored like I have with other self help books. She writes in a “Yeah I was a hot mess and I still am sometimes, but I’m dealing with it” kind of attitude, and I loved it. A lot of the pages have little notes at the bottom of the page from her explaining more about what we were reading, which I thought was something fun that I’ve never seen in a book before.

The Advice

Each chapter focuses on one area of her life that she improved, and how you can do the same. It includes advice on how to kill your inner critic, forgive (and forget) people, how to create routines, how to practice, self care, how NOT to treat your body like a garbage can and more. I found it helpful to read first about how she ended up NEEDING to make these changes, and then how she implemented them.

This particular quote really resonated with me:

“No matter what you are busy with, whether it be your job, your dating life, or taking care of children or aging parents, I think we all suffer from this societal pressure to always be occupied. “Busy” is worn as a badge of honor these days; the busier we are, the more important we feel. But busy doesn’t mean important. Busy just means you are preoccupied. And often it means you’re distracted. It doesn’t mean you are esteemed, fun, smart, worthy, valued, loved, appreciated, excited, or happy. Busy likely means you are not paying attention to the current moment but instead you are hustling around in a fog of things you “have” to do. Busy isn’t special. We are all busy. So why label yourself something so common? You’re better than that.” - Tara Schuster

rating: 9/10

I found it a bit slow to start, and wondered when the “advice” giving would come in, but when it did, it was worth reading! I would recommend it to anyone who feels stuck in the routines and bad habits of their life and needs a change- or just anyone who needs to add a little more self love to their life.

Have you read Buy Yourself The F*cking Lilies yet? Let me know what you thought in the comments below!