How to Be Loved

<strong>A luminous memoir about how friendship saved one woman's life for anyone who has loved a friend who was sick grieving or lost--and for anyone who has struggled to seek or accept help</strong> <p/> Eva Hagberg spent her lonely youth looking everywhere for connection: drugs alcohol therapists boyfriends girlfriends. Sometimes she found it but always temporarily. Then at age thirty an undiscovered mass in her brain ruptured. So did her life. A brain surgery marked only the beginning of a long journey and when her illness hit a critical stage it forced her to finally admit the long-suppressed truth: she was vulnerable she needed help and she longed to grow. She needed true friendship for the first time. <p/><em>How to Be Loved</em> is the story of how an isolated person's life was ripped apart only to be gently stitched back together through friendship and the recovery--of many stripes--that came along the way. It explores the isolation so many of us feel despite living in an age of constant connectivity; how our ambitions sometimes pull us apart more than bring us together; and how a simple doughnut delivered by a caring soul can become the essence of what makes a life valuable. With gorgeous prose shot through with empathy pain fear and the secret truths inside all of us Eva writes about the friends who taught her to grow up and open her heart--and how the relentlessness of suffering can give rise to the greatest joy.