Customer Reviews

PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives

5 star:		(207)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I've been a fan of the PostSecret website for quite awhile. Its nice to have so many of the secrets, some of which I've seen before, in a book.
Read secrets out loud, to a friend: They're a great conversation piece. Read secrets alone: They will, by turns, make you laugh, cry and think.
The only thing I would change is that the postcards are enlarged, often taking a full page, or even two pages, of space. I would have preferred to see them closer to their actual size. You tend to lose the feeling that you're reading an actual postcard.

I read select postcard secrets out loud to a group of friends. Some of the secrets were hilariously funny. Others were very disturbing in that they revealed, long-held secrets of various abuses by and toward others, and the resulting expressions of anger, regret, guilt and sadness appeared all too often throughout the book. The boldness of people reaching out through this medium made me read their secrets with some measure of trepidation. No doubt, many readers will recognize themselves, their desires and longings, in the postcard writings. This visually-stimulating book should be a wake up call to everyone, that emotional mental health issues are inadequately addressed in our culture. The book is one step towards affirming that it's a positive and healing thing to get one's hidden issues "out there" and hopefully, examined. I don't get what all the fuss is over the layout. Maybe a larger size or format would have looked better, but then the book would've been more cumbersome to transport. The size is comfortably practical and the layout is fine, especially also since the postcards were grouped together with common themes. Works for me.

I absolutely love the website and was thrilled when I received the book. It is unique, creative and very thought provoking which has encouraged some very stimulating conversations. I would highly recommend this book.

Frank Warren's compilation is the perfect physical manifestation of his website (postsecret.com). The book makes a great gift and addition to a personal library, particularly for those of us who are fascinated by the people around us. The project itself is a great undertaking and deserves the support.

I am a huge fan of the website, but this book has proved to be more than I could imagine! Every single postsecret is riveting. I will highly recommend this book to everyone!

Like the site, the book somehow manages to evoke the feeling of not being alone - it's stunning to see people's secrets that they have finally decided to entrust to the entire World.

It has so obviously been a catharitc experience for people who have contributed.

Everyone I show it to recognises something of themselves in it.

I recomend it to the entire population - buy it, read it, contribute to the next one.

My first thought was 'What an odd little book.' I continued to flip through the pages; the artwrok was in turns quirkily or eeriely funny to gut wrentchingly personal. Confessions from putting boogers in soup to being victimized are more hauntingly immediate by the illustrations than the actual words.
It is amazing how much you can sympathize with a stranger with only twenty words. Not to be sappy, but in each card a stranger reaveals something so pure and unique, you can almost envision their daily lives. And wonder about how to express your own secrets.

I've been visiting the postsecret website for quite some time-eager to see the new posts every Monday morning. When I heard about the book I quickly ordered it. I read it in one sitting and plan on keeping it on my bookshelf to share with others. I'm all for coming out with a book on this subject - if the sale of the book keeps the website up and running (and pays for Frank Warren's time) then by all means, keep publishing the books! One note for the future, as others have said, it would be best to redesign the layout to not cut through the gutter of the book - and to also keep the postcards to scale.

I think the concept is original and being someone who has sent in secrets herself, I think it could be helping a lot of people in a theraputic way to share their secrets. Also, I'm so impressed with the general public's creativity in expressing their happiness, grief, depression and guarded thoughts in such a small format. Truly intriguing... this book is worth every penny.

The "postcards" in this book were collected as part of an art project, but it's just as much a psychology experiment. Imagine a world where you can learn people's innermost secrets...the good, the bad, the sexy, the hilariously funny, and the devastatingly sad...and you've got "PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives."

Some of the material is odd, but you can imagine a person telling her closest friend, like the card showing women's feet with the admission, "I show pictures of my feet to a man online so he'll buy me stuff."

Some is joyous, but with a sad undertone, such as a close-up of a baby's face with this written across it: "For the first time since I was a baby I am finally happy. I'm 28." You want to congratulate the person, but it's also a little sad to think that he or she went so long without being happy.

In the devastatingly sad category, I include one in which someone tells a friend that he or she is glad the friend's uncle died because he had molested the writer when he/she was in 7th grade. That's a tough thing to tell a friend, and at least as tough to hear.

The lighter side includes such overtly funny admissions as, "I used to get high and watch Lawrence Welk." and the highly understandable "I waste office supplies because I hate my boss."

If you think I've given it all away here, believe me, there is SO much more. In fact, while I love the book, I recommend reading it in several sittings - it's VERY emotional in many sections and can be downright overwhelming if you approach it with too much empathy. Then again, if you don't, you're likely to miss half the humanity of this very moving book.

The secrets are daring, soulful, and riveting. Some we have seen before on the PostSecret website, but that doesn't make them any less amazing. There's something that changes you by the honesty of the cards. I highly recommend this book as a gift, as anybody I've ever shown it to has immediately been captivate and can't turn it down.