For every person who has ever been hurt, who’s ever felt betrayed, who’s ever debated “to forgive or not to forgive?” there has been someone else telling them that forgiveness will free them, that forgiveness is good for them, that forgiveness is the right thing to do. If you’re that person who’s been hurt or betrayed, this advice has probably sounded hollow. If you’re like me, it’s also sounded preachy, a little condescending, and more than a little annoying. The topic of forgiveness is also often tied to religion, leaving the less devout hanging. All this to say, any conversation about forgiveness usually fails to read the room. At the very least, it fails to read the whole room.

This isn’t the case in The Forgiveness Tour by Susan Shapiro. After Shapiro’s therapist of fifteen years began seeing one of her former students and good friends as a patient, Shapiro felt deeply hurt. Her therapist was her confidante, the one person she could be completely open with, and the person she credited with helping her overcome addiction. Her former student was her protégé, someone she saw herself in. When Shapiro’s student mentioned that she was shopping for a therapist, and asked Shapiro about hers, Shapiro asked her friend to see a different therapist. In her next session with her therapist, she let him know that she wasn’t comfortable with him seeing her student. They both promised her they wouldn’t cross that line.

Shapiro is plagued with thoughts of them gossiping about her in their sessions, which take place just before her own. It’s bad enough that they both went behind her back for months, but then neither of them will even admit they did something wrong. Neither of them will apologize. This, above all, is what leaves Shapiro inconsolable. What keeps her up at night, what makes her lose weight, what even, in a moment of festering bitterness, drives her to put an old Yiddish curse on them.

Admittedly, readers may struggle to understand what makes this so unforgiveable. As a heads-up, Shapiro’s relationship with her therapist was unorthodox. Though not romantic or sexual, it became deeply intimate over the course of those fifteen years in a way some may find inappropriate, even manipulative. Her therapist’s style of treatment isn’t exactly aboveboard, heavily relying on his own unfounded, blatantly made-up theories. What may be particularly disconcerting to some readers is that his advising seemed to frequently encourage Susan to designate him as the most important relationship and highest authority in her life. Even still, Shapiro’s faith in her therapist is unequivocal, and may help illuminate why her therapist’s decision to see her student was such a betrayal. 

It’s Shapiro’s inability to forgive after this betrayal that inspires her to go on her titular forgiveness tour. She sets out to answer the question “should you have to forgive someone who isn’t sorry?” and in doing so also explores the questions "is forgiveness really 'good' for you?" and "what does a proper apology entail?" and "are apologies truly for the person who's done wrong, or for the person who's been wronged?" among others.

This memoir chronicles a year in Shapiro's life, beginning to end, and is enriched with every possible philosophy out there on forgiveness that she learned from people from varied backgrounds and faiths. While writing this book, Shapiro interviewed friends, family, students, and anyone she was around long enough to convince to interview, like her physical therapist. Some she purposely sought out because of the potential of their story, like her dad’s friend who survived the Holocaust. Every chapter is dedicated to a different person she interviewed, who each have their own unique wounds. This includes a veteran, a victim of incestuous sexual assault, a man who lost his family to a drunk driver, and many others. It’s worth noting that some of the interviewees’ perspectives may be insensitive or controversial today, and Shapiro shares their stories without filter or judgment. To be fair, this further underscores the multifaceted nature of forgiveness, since she asks everyone that she interviews to share their own personal view of it.

Shapiro also asks the interviewees what it would take for them to forgive. Some of them have a very clear idea of what it would take, others have already forgiven, and others still say nothing, nothing could make them forgive. After each interview, Shapiro reflects on her own wound. Listening to interviewees who had been through far worse helps her see her own story “wasn’t tragic,” and over the course of the forgiveness tour, it even starts to feel “insignificant” to her.

Though very informative, and worldly, Shapiro never bogs the writing down with overtly provided research, and the interviews are interwoven seamlessly into Shapiro’s own story. Shapiro's voice is honest, upfront, and unabashed, as is every recounting with her family, her husband, her job, and her time in therapy for addiction. While undeniably audacious at times, Shapiro is never truly unlikeable. She's simultaneously a narrator the reader may often and easily root for, and a narrator they may rarely, and reluctantly root against.

Each chapter is something you could read casually on a plane, and yet the stories within each are deep and nuanced. Most importantly, her perspective on forgiveness is honest, relatable, and as a result, more resonant. She says it best herself when she writes,

Self-proclaimed forgiveness authorities bombarded pages, screens, and airwaves, offering proof of the infinite benefits of embracing those who’d offended you. They warned about the burdens of not forgiving. These so-called experts claimed that, for your health, you should grant mercy, even to someone completely remorseless. But honestly, how hard was saying two damn words after a major screw-up?

Though most commentaries on forgiveness rarely take into account the complexity of harm, and the simplicity of an apology, Shapiro's book cuts through the bullshit and gets right at the heart. It is the only "forgiveness"-themed anything I’ve read that has ever felt like it was for people who have actually been harmed, who are actually grappling with the decision to forgive. Most importantly, Shapiro acknowledges that there isn't a simple answer. There are many answers. There must be, because everyone is going to be hurt at some point in their life, and there are so many ways to be hurt. She even outright says that nobody has to forgive anybody—but even in admitting this, she still avoids trivializing the issue by suggesting that this is all there is to it.

As it so happens, I don't harbor any festering grudges of my own. Still, I found this book’s various approaches to forgiveness enlightening, even if I didn't always agree with them. I also found this book validating—no matter who has wronged you, or the nature of their wrongdoing, it is up to you whether or not to forgive, and what forgiveness means to you.

If there’s someone in your life you don’t know how to forgive, or can’t bring yourself to forgive, this book is on your side.