Life: It is what it is

by Lisa Sugarman

Overview

We expend massive amounts of energy in pursuit of perfection. If only we could never make mistakes or encounter unpleasant obstacles, oh, wouldn't life be just perfect? Maybe, but it would also be static, unfulfilling, and really, really boring.

Humorist Lisa Sugarman knows that life is a work in progress. She knows what we all suspect-life is at its best when it's fluid, unpredictable, and gloriously imperfect. And if this means life sometimes turns ugly and unpleasant, it only makes the good times that much sweeter.

Author of opinion column It Is What It Is, Lisa embraces reality, not perfection. We're supposed to be imperfect. We're meant to screw up, make bad decisions, and lose our way. We can't control everything that life throws at us, but we can control how we react to it.

With the right attitude and a little guidance from Lisa, anyone can be happy and fulfilled most of the time. Her collection of funny, inspiring, and sometimes poignant columns reminds us that life is not a straight line, even on the best of days, and it's the twists in the road which make the journey so beautiful.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781494798130
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	02/13/2014
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Lisa Sugarman works, lives, and writes in Marblehead, Massachusetts, a small town of twenty thousand people crammed onto a small peninsula. She knows just about everyone in town, giving her a unique perspective as an opinion columnist for the local newspaper.

Lisa received her bachelor of arts with honors from Salem State University in 1991. She has authored the semi-regular opinion column It Is What It Is for The Marblehead Reporter and other GateHouse Media, Inc. since 2009.

Married to Dave, her high-school sweetheart, Lisa has two daughters, Riley and Libby.

Editorial Reviews

2014-03-24
In this collection of previously published opinion columns, Sugarman shares her gently humorous, inspirational musings about life. "I've got an incredibly long stream of consciousness with endless opinions on everything from life and parenting to relationships and health and everything in between," says Sugarman in this compendium of her "It Is What It Is" columns, originally published in the Marblehead Reporter, a Massachusetts regional newspaper. In short essays averaging about 1,000 words each, she explores general-interest topics with a wry but mostly upbeat tone, often emphasizing the importance of adopting a positive, compassionate view of life. "Walk a While in Someone Else's Cast" is typical of her approach: She grouses about the inconvenience of being in a boot cast for several weeks and makes a joke about her husband, Dave, serving as her "cabana boy," and finally urges readers to appreciate their own mobility and what they have in life. Sugarman addresses seasonal and holiday themes several times, extolling the virtues of spring cleaning and encouraging folks to stick to New Year's resolutions, for example. Some darkness peeks through, on occasion; "Where have all the Good People Gone?" expresses her anger and sadness that no one stopped to help her teenage daughter's friend, who suffered an injury while running. "An Ode to Mister Rogers," however, is a more representative piece; in it, she expresses her affinity with genial TV icon Fred Rogers and shows the value of regular routines and being nice. None of the author's riffs are unique or earth-shattering, as many bloggers currently cover similar turf, and her attempt to make her hometown of Marblehead, Mass., a "character" in this collection isn't fully successful. That said, Sugarman is a professional, accomplished writer, and her easy-to-read essays should prove smoothly satisfying to general readers. Appealing, embracing essays about everyday life.

Kirkus Reviews