Cancer Is Complicated and Other Unexpected Lessons I’ve Learned

Shearer, coauthor of The Home Edit Life and cofounder of home organization company The Home Edit, recounts her struggle with breast cancer in this down-to-earth memoir. After discovering a lump in her breast in 2022, Shearer rushed to her first-ever mammogram and learned she had cancer. A double mastectomy revealed that the disease had spread to her lymph nodes, necessitating an aggressive chemotherapy and radiation regimen so painful it sometimes felt as if she was dying (“like I was almost levitating over myself”). Shearer recounts the ups and downs of living with a disease defined by its unpredictability—“When it comes to cancer, things can turn on a dime”—and the emotional volatility it causes, from small joys like binging TV with her mom to the feeling of “slipping into a black hole” that followed her diagnosis. While the author’s concrete advice (bring a friend or family member to medical appointments) is familiar, her matter-of-fact explanations of the bodily experience of chemo are valuable, and her breezy, good-humored tone keeps things from getting too heavy (still drugged after a surgery, she remembers thinking she had “an 86 percent chance of living five more years, and a 60 percent chance of dropping my phone on my face”). Those grappling with recent cancer diagnoses will find comfort and welcome humor here. (Sept.)