I’m going to diverge from the norm and NOT compare this to Maybe You Should Talk to Someone–although it’s a fair comparison. But The Group, while it absolutely is about therapy, has a raw, tell-it-all, scraped to the bone quality that I didn’t find in Gottlieb’s book (and that it didn’t need, that’s not a critique). If your kind of memoir is one that pulls zero punches and never lets up, this is for you. One note–I’d hesitate before I gave this to my single friends, because while the message of the book is that it’s the ability to connect with her group that saves the author, there’s also an ongoing assumption that to be whole requires a partner–because this author wants a partner (and so do I, and that’s FINE). But it’s not for everyone, so maybe not for those particular holiday gift boxes.