If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers Paperback – 19 April 2016

Hannah Brencher is a very talented young writer who provides amazing insight & impact in her debut novel. Fantastic read! Highly recommended!!!

Excellent and prompt delivery, very happy with purchase :-)

The author moved to New York after college to work on volunteer projects for a year. During that year she used to travel on the subway and imagine what her fellow commuters' lives were really like. One day she saw someone she really wanted to communicate with and wrote her a letter but by the time she'd finished the letter the woman had left the train. She wrote a whole notebook full of letters and telling the recipients that they matter in the world and that they aren't alone. She decided to tear each one out and leave it somewhere for strangers to find. If you find this letter - it is for you.Then she decided to write about the letters on her blog and tell her readers if they e-mailed her she would write them a 'love letter'. The experiment grew into a website 'The World Needs More Love Letters' From small beginnings it grew into an international undertaking.Part autobiography this fascinating book shows how something small can grow into something really big which has changed countless lives. Showing people that they aren't alone and however dreadful their lives might seem at that moment they do matter in the world has taken over her life and given her a purpose.I found this a very moving and extraordinary book and well worth reading by anyone who feels they may have become too cynical about the world in general and the internet in particular. Here is a good example of the internet being used to connect people and to help the lonely to feel that they belong. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.

I felt like I was sitting down with Hannah in a coffee shop as 2 old friends catching up on all the time that has passed, sharing inner thoughts and secret desires. She writes with honesty, not just in detail but in feeling, so much so that I felt as if I was reading my own thoughts. Her journey is challenging and inspiring and yet it doesn't make you feel like less of a person for your lack of accomplishments - it makes you feel hopeful, like your purpose is attainable, even as flawed and confused as we all are sometimes. I loved it! Highly recommend it, especially for the younger women who are setting out on their own journey of discovering who they are and what they want from life.

I could not wait for this book to come out! I have been participating in Hannah's MoreLoveLetters.com campaign since January of 2014, and I was curious as to how her work of love letters--that fits me so well--all came about. Other reviewers who got a copy from Howard Press have given wonderful detail about the book and about Hannah's journey. What I want you to know is that I felt engaged with her as I read. Hannah writes real. She writes active. She writes so it feels as if we are in the same room together. I found myself in her journey; she brought me right back to my own heart-wrenching graduation from college, and I eagerly turned each page to learn how she found her way out of those feelings and into her purpose. I am now a college professor (and writing letters is an assignment in my syllabi), and I could see a number of my current students in the pages of Hannah's life. Those students are also Millennials, experience loneliness, and have troubles making a career commitment, just like Hannah. Even thought this is Hannah's memoir, she brings the reader into a shared space; an inviting space. Through Hannah's experiences, ability to express deep emotions, and fierce determination, she makes this an extraordinary read. As a letter writer since my first best friend moved away at age 6, after reading Hannah's book I am even more determined to write love letters through the end of my days, and to keep letter writing a part of my students' experiences in my classes. For those of you who are not already letter writers but who enjoy memoirs, work with college students in transition, or want to get in touch with the lived realities of those in Hannah's generation--buy and read this book!

I love this writer's style. I laughed, I cried. I couldn't put it down. In my top 3 for sure​!!! Fantastic read!

I'm almost ashamed it took me nearly a month to finish this book. I learned early in the reading process that this book needs time to digest and savor. It's not to be rushed. Enjoy a chapter an evening and let that simmer on low in the back of your head for a while. Stir. Continue.I fell in love with The World Needs More Love Letters movement in 2012. I was a senior in high school and I wrote to Hannah saying I wanted to be a part of it. But she was this goddess running this piece of magic that was changing the world and I was incapable of doing anything to help outside of my busy high school life. And yet, through her busy schedule, she found time to reply to me - a girl with a dream to change the world (or, help someone change the world) and a girl with terrible time management. But I attempted to do it anyway and started leaving love letters. I now leave letters in books, to bookworms who potentially need a pick me up mostly, as well as the occasional sticky note and envelope tucked into the confines of my work place. I'm indebted to Hannah for giving me the opportunity to make my own little mark within her big one.When I found out she was writing a book, my heart soared. I preordered it on Amazon 2 months before it came out and fell in love with her words all over again within the first 4 sentences of cracking the spine. I hope she knows the impact she's made on a now 21 - year-old girl, providing me a role model with a healthy addiction to love and words as I do.I suppose I should get to the book review now, but I think I already did. Hannah and her project gave me something to aspire to be. Someone to idolize and want to be more like. Her book only reinforced that idea, reading that she started out rough and slowly her edges began to smooth out. I relate to this more than she will ever know and I consider myself lucky to have been blessed with her story for more than 3 years.I'll end with this:If you don't know what you're doing anymore, read this book. Find hope in her words, realize that anyone and everyone needs to learn to swim sometimes and your life is bigger than this. You'll think it's a few sizes too big at first and if awkwardly hangs off you like a dress, but darling, you can learn to become a decent tailor and make it look like it was made for you. and Hannah can help with that.

I read this book a year ago after watching her TedTalk, which just randomly popped up in my LinkedIn feed. Love Hannah's story, what a difference she is making in the World and the ripple effect she is creating. Yes, the World absolutely needs more written love letters, print, think cursive is a dying art too, sadly. I volunteer with a non-profit helping displaced families, I'm asking if our churches will volunteer to write love letters to those in the progam, words of affirmation and support change people's lives. Thank you Hannah, for your work, passion and persistence. God in fact brings something good out of something bad (your depression, thanks for sharing that journey too, we need to be more transparent with our problems so others can see a way out, that through deep pain God does walk with us in the valleys, his rod and staff do comfort us, doesn't mean we want experience difficulties, it means with God we can get to the other side and if we allow him he will turn it into a greater good, just like he has done for you. God bless you and keep you and may His face continue to shine upon you and your ministry. Leigh Ann