Book Review: Craigslist Confessional by Helena Dea Bala

Book: 140/150

Rating: 4/5

Craigslist Confessional is a collection of stories told by real people to Helena Dea Bala: an ex-Washington lobbyist who decided to quit her job, and for a year, keep an ad live on Craigslist that she will listen to people for free.

I’ve really enjoyed reading short stories/essays lately; so I liked the format of this one. It was SO hard to put down because each story was so engaging.

At a time where watching the news and going out in public and seeing people wear “Make America Great Again” hat’s and people refusing to wear masks for the safety of themselves and others, I feel like I tend to assume the worst in people. This book was a good reminder that you never really know what someone else is going through (I’m not including the MAGA hat wearers and mask refusers in here). I definitely consider myself an empath, but reading this book definitely gives me a new perspective and have more empathy for strangers.

Now, what knocked this down a star for me is I almost feel like publishing and profiting off of people’s stories in this way feels kind of exploity? Especially given that seemingly none of the profits from the book are going towards any kind of foundation/cause given the amount of people that were interviewed either themselves or a loved one battled addiction, illness, or trauma.

Also, the people interviewed weren’t acknowledged in the acknowledgements at the end of the book. Yes, it was dedicated to them, and the author talks about her process for writing the book at the beginning, but still just felt a bit off to me.

Overall, the writing was good and the vulnerability that people had when sharing their stories with the author was amazing. If I were to just rate the stories on their own it would be 5 stars for that exact reason.