My Amazon and Goodreads review of Guts (Rating 5): Interweaving Illness, Family, and Friendship — Janet Buttenwieser rewards readers with three connected stories. First, the book is a moving memoir of how she found the confidence to speak up for herself to a medical establishment that claimed to know her body better than she did, and how she trained that body to take physical risks she never thought possible. Second, Guts is an appreciation of family, the body’s extension that sustains us when we’re ready to surrender and magnifies our joy when we’re already past bursting. The book’s third tale, which embodies the other two, is a testimonial to friendship. Buttenwieser honors the late friend who she gained through admiration, lost through inattention, regained through commitment, and lost again to cancer. Guts, guarantees that her friend will live within her, and her readers, forever.
