Tiny Beautiful Things is Cheryl Strayed's collection of essays, which doesn't have a clear-cut narrative, that is taken from her weekly column for the online literary magazine The Rumpus. In each essay, Strayed provides authentic, straightforward, and empathetic advice to her readers, including those who are dealing with death and other, very emotional, problems in their lives. Strayed also begins by explaining how she came to write the columns in The Rumpus. She explains how sociopolitical and economic factors (namely, the Great Recession of 2008) influenced her decision to write her columns.
In each of her essays, Strayed is responding to people who wrote to her seeking advice. Those people came from different areas of the United States and the world and had different backgrounds. Despite coming from different backgrounds, each of Strayed's readers dealt with similar difficulties, including issues with their families, relationships, the death of loved ones, and finances (among several other things). In every essay, Strayed takes an empathetic but forceful point of view. She uses examples from her own life to illustrate why the person she is addressing must take a certain course of action. For instance, Strayed talks about her Heroin addiction (and her subsequently kicking the drug) to address someone who is struggling with another kind of drug addiction. Strayed also links her addiction to Heroin to the death of her mother, whom she loved dearly and whose death destroyed her.
Tiny Beautiful Things is also in part a memoir. Strayed talks about her life and some of the difficult things she has experienced throughout her life, including the psychical and sexual abuse she dealt with when she was a child. She also talks about how her choices have affected (and ultimately destroyed) several friendships throughout her life.
Strayed then leads into her current life and her decision to have children with her husband at thirty-five. She talks about how her life has transformed from profound sadness to incredible happiness and fulfillment—but still not devoid of difficulty or hardship. Above all, Strayed uses her experience to convey a simple message to her readers. To move forward in life, Strayed argues that humans must first acknowledge what happened to them, and accept the circumstances they are in. In turn, they must act tastefully, strongly, and courageously.
In the end, Strayed provides commentary on how the world has changed from the time she initially wrote her Rumpus columns and when she wrote Tiny Beautiful Things. She ties the proliferation of the Internet and Internet culture with the changing behavior of people and cultures around the world. And as a result of that, she tells readers that her advice has got to change.
