About Better. Not Perfect

In Better. Not Perfect Subtitle: From Hot Mess to Life Success: A Woman’s Guide to Learning, Loving, and Being Herself, Unapologetically), Dr. Shai Butler presents an insightful memoir, which she uses as a source of wisdom to benefit other women. In reflecting on the struggles of each chapter of her life, she identifies pieces of hard-won knowledge and then shows how that knowledge can be applied to others’ lives. Though her upbringing in a cultured and self-reliant family was occasionally more privileged than those of her peers, it was also marked by significant struggles, including the traumatic loss of her primary caregiver, the frequent absence of her unreliable father, ostracism by peers, victimization by sexual predators, and the stigma that came with teen motherhood. She also tells how she earned a bachelor’s degree while living on her own and how she later found a healthy and joyful love relationship, married, reached professional and academic success, and made the lifesaving decision to seek help for her addictions. Each of these experiences adds another dimension to the book’s lessons about the nature and purpose of life as Dr. Shai reflects on them. In every episode, the reader gets a vivid sense of the author’s spirited personality as she describes how she was shaped by these experiences and her responses to them. She looks back at past mistakes with unsparing honesty, but also models how to forgive one’s younger self for lacking the wisdom that comes only through experience.