If You Feel Too Much Discussion Response

Serenity Stewart

RST:199

June 30, 2017

If You Feel Too Much

Discussion Questions

Much of If You Feel Too Much focuses on the idea of our lives as stories. In his disclaimer on page 162-163, Jamie writes “There are moments we feel stuck in, things we wish we could forget, pages and paragraphs—even entire chapters—we wish we could remove…within the same story of your life, there are things you love.” How do the 44 stories in If You Feel Too Much knit together life’s victories and tragedies into a cohesive narrative? Are there any components that don’t fit into the overall narrative?

The forty-four stories in If You Feel Too Much come together between the tragedies and life’s accomplishment perfectly as one. Jamie’s uses forty-four personal short stories that goes through everyday life and experiences. He goes through and tells his stories the good, bad and ugly and does it with a high head.

In the book, he tells a story called “Alive and Bright in Brooklyn,” this story relates to me in a funny way. In the story, he said he walked her all the way home and then ran home because it was dark and scary. Last week I walked my brother cookies and played with him for a while. When I finally went home it was dark and scary and I ran home too. Even though his story and my story does really relate but the way he told it made me feel like they were the same. The story “David McKenna Was My Friend” when he died in the car accident. Reading this Story made me cry because I instantly though about my 14-year-old cousin who died in a car accident. Relating his story with my story I realized that she was the person that I always went to she was my friend my best friend if anything.

        I feel like this book needs every story in this book to make it understandable. All the components come together as one. The reason I say this is because if one of the stories were taken out it wouldn’t work. They stories would flow like they are now.

Jamie often discusses the power of friendship in If You Feel Too Much. What role does friendship take in the relationships between Jamie and others, and how does this affect his own life perspective?

All of Jamie’s stories are made around friendships and relationships. He values the aspects that comes with relationships. Without the friends, he has met along the way he wouldn’t have had the experiences to write this book. He basically uses that power of friendship to help him through his experiences and hardship throughout his life.

Jamie recognizes that having friends or more than friends will help you through hard experiences for example the story “To Write Love On Her Arm”. Jamie stays by Renee’s side through everything she went through. He listens to her stories and that’s how he came up with the movement TWLOHA. If Jamie didn’t stay there by her side as a friend and just pushed her off because she was a “junky” he wouldn’t have understood why she did what she did. Instead he stood there listened to all the pain she went through and made something of it.