Go Away, Come Closer: When What You Need the Most Is What You Fear the Most, a Book About Intimacy

Rating:
Summary: One of the best gifts you can give yourself.
Review: Terry Hershey's Go Away, Come Closer could be one of the most unsettling books you'll ever read, yet it's also one of the best gifts you can give yourself and your identity. --Bookstore Journal

Rating:
Summary: Hit the nail on the head
Review: This is a very good book for those who fear close relationships. The author emphasizes that to be human is to want and need to feel connected to others. Yet, often our ambivalence toward ourselves, those in our lives, and life itself makes it difficult to reach out to others to love and to be loved.

Through reading this book, I came to understand that relationships involve enormous risk and feelings of vulnerability. The results of taking risks can be both painful and pleasurable. However, both are a necessary part of life. Without pain, we would not enjoy pleasure. The author points out that we sometimes live life as though we're fending it off or simply getting through it. He suggests instead that we think of life as an invitation, including an invitation to be loved. There are not necessarily rational reasons others may love us. We simply are loved.

The author is a Christian but the book does not come across as overly religious. I have taken books back to the store because they emphasize religion too much. This book only has some sprinklings here and there. He deals far more with the feelings and emotions his readers struggle through.