What a thought-provoking concept... What would people share if they knew that the person listening had no agenda? Craigslist Confessional gives us a glimpse into the minds and hearts of people who chose to reach out to the author with a simple goal: to get something off their chest and be heard by one person. Helena Dea Bala does a great job of telling these 40 individual stories and channeling their voices. Highly recommended!

Thank you Gallery Books for a copy of Craigslist Confessional for review.

This was an interesting collection of true stories, and with any collection, I enjoyed some more than others and while they are collected under a few broad categories, I did find that they all felt the same after a while. The fact that we only get one side of each story and only the storyteller's perspective on things, I found myself wondering more about the other people than the storyteller. Interesting idea that just felt one sided, which was something that left me feeling wanting more.

I really liked this book. It will show you a painful side to life but it will also teach you to have more empathy and in today's world I think a lot of people need to relearn what empathy is. I woukd recommend this book. .


I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

I throughly enjoyed this book. With the state of the world right now, the stories in this book put things into perspective.

A fascinating concept; an interesting read. This book truly is a confessional. It makes you realize that everyone has a story and many have a specific moment in time that changes the course of their life altogether. There were some happy stories but much of the book was quite sad. Some stories were exquisitely painful to read. I do find it brave, albeit a bit naive, that the author met with complete strangers and simply offered to listen. Out of that simple act of kindness came this book. Thank you to @netgalley @gallerybooks and the author for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. #netgalley #goodreads #craigslistconfessional #helenadeabala #gallerybooks #bookstagrammer #booksandmrdarcy #withhernosestuckinabook❤️📚

What a great idea for a book. I was a huge fan of post secret and trying to get inside people’s heads. I am a big proponent of empathy and I think Craigslist Confessional can help those that lack empathy, gain a little more. This was a wonderful read during quarantine time.

A tough read, not because of the writing because of the nature of the book. There is a reason it is called confession - it is too heavy and personal to be told and to listen/read about it. This is a book that you will have to take breaks while reading - it is not an easy read. It can be cathartic or depressing according to the topics and it will be a personal experience for every reader. Impossible book to rate because of that, so just based on personal opinions, 3.5 stars

Many of these stories were hard to read. Some were relatable, some were upsetting, some were disturbing, some were insightful, some were encouraging, some were odd. I felt a whole lot of emotions while reading this book. It was well written and does a great job exploring humanity and the need and desire people have to be heard and understood.

This book contains many short stories where people confess to the author, about their lives and situations they had been in. This definitely helped me out of my slump. I want more of these stories. Each section has their own set of trigger warnings - I remember abuse, rape, cancer, dying, mental illness and I’m sure there are more that I missed. Some of these stories are so incredibly heartbreaking - Can you imagine having to marry your rapist? These stories also help you to not feel alone and help you to realize that everyone has a story and often you have no idea what is going on or has gone on in their lives. This is one I highly recommend!

Helena Dea Bala, a lobbyist in Washington DC was feeling unfulfilled, adrift and lonely when she decided to strike up a conversation with a homeless man she often encountered on her way home from work. This interaction transformed her life when Dea Bala realized that she could better use her honed gift for interviewing by collecting peoples’ deepest, most personal stories. Craigslist Confessional: A Collection of Secrets from Anonymous Strangers is the result of the author’s call for people to share their lives with her. The 40 stories included in the book reveal the deep need for connection with others and the compulsion people feel to unburden themselves when given a chance. The collection is broken up into five sections: Love, Regret, Loss, Identity and Family, but the themes of transformation and vulnerability run throughout all. The people who spoke with Dea Bala varied in age, class, race, gender identity and life experience. They contain tales that range from revelations of mundane sadness and dissatisfaction to actual criminal activity and horrifying tales of abuse. Some are difficult reading-gritty and deeply affecting, and the author does a fantastic job in capturing the underlying emotion within the individual storyteller’s voice. This is an especially interesting project given our current “exposure” culture: where social media is voluntarily used to display curated and minute life details while also concealing the alienation that arises when we become increasingly more self-absorbed and distant from one another. The stories in Craigslist Confessional are haunting, memorable and striking in their honesty. Dea Bala’s work also serves as an important reminder that we will always yearn for opportunities to interact and receive reassurance from others as part of our shared humanity.

Thanks to the author, Gallery Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I loved this! Thank you Helena for sharing their stories with the world.

Some of the stories made me cry, some made me feel not alone and others, just reminded me that we’re all human. I liked how each person had several pages that was straight to the point and then we read about a new person. Because of this, the book moved quickly and was addicting. We may want the world to see us one way and portray that were “perfect” but this gave people the comfort of sharing the dirty truth. When PostSecret first came out, every Sunday I was addicted to reading the cards and their secrets and this gave me vibes of that. This was exactly what I needed to break up my reads.

Outstanding writing, extremely depressing stories. Surely there were at least a few people the author spoke with that had uplifting stories, and I wish she included some of those, too.

Craigslist Confessional was an interesting collection of little stories, many of them sad and heartbreaking. It’s a very interesting concept, to think that the author met with all of the people in the book anonymously and listened to their stories, then shared these stories with us. I enjoyed this book as it was easy to pick up, read a couple stories, and put down, and then pick back up again later.

Thank you to @netgalley and @borderbooks for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

“What would you confess if you knew it would never get back to your spouse, your colleagues, or your family? What story would you tell about your life if a stranger was willing to listen with no judgement, no stigma, and no consequences—just an unburdening and the relief of confession?”

Craigslist Confessional is a short but powerful book. I have often wondered how people like Brandon Stanton from Humans of New York get random people to let him take their photos and let them into their lives. I think certain people have a gift for getting others to open up to them honestly, and we all have a real, deep need for connection. Helena Dea Bala has this gift.

Burned out and unhappy from her job as a lobbyist in Washington DC, Dea Bala is moved by a homeless man who she often stopped to talk with on her way to work. He confides in her that very few people treat him with dignity. She starts opening up to him and they form a connection. She wonders how many other people feel this way, and if there was anything she could do about it. This encounter leads her to put an ad on Craigslist, offering to listen, anonymously and for free, to anything the person wanted or needed to confess. That’s how this book was born.

I was touched and moved by so many of these stories. They are short essays, divided into the following sections: Love, Regret, Loss, Identity and Family. People talk openly and unapologetically about their true loves, unimaginable losses and betrayals, deep regrets & forgiveness. Each storyteller was vulnerable and with each story I was amazed by how open they were about their lives...which I think is a testament to Dea Lana’s kindness and concern for each person she interviewed.

I’d love to read more of these and I hope the author continues with a second book because I’m sure she has many more stories to tell. I found it particularly touching that she ended the book with a story of her own.

Craigslist Confessional began as a passion project for Helena Dea Bala, where she provided a listening ear to those who desperately needed an outlet to talk about their struggles and confessions. She merely documented their words, offering no advice, acting as a peer and confidante rather than a therapist.

After reading the introduction to the author and how this project came about, I was very impressed with the commitment and sacrifice that she made in order to capture the stories of strangers. This process was extremely taxing on her mentally, and she quit her unfulfilling job in order to work on it full-time.

It was certainly a mixed bag when it came to the stories. Some of them were extremely poignant, inspiring, and heartfelt, while others seemed less self-aware or hopeless.

I was able to relate to a number of them, while others left me feeling sad and grateful for the childhood and life that I was given. Overall, this is a great collection, and everyone will be able to find stories that really speak to their specific challenges they have had to face.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishing house, and the author for allowing me an electronic version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I just love the premise of this book. That someone took time out of their life to ask strangers if they needed just to talk. No judgement. No advice. Just a safe person, another human, who will listen and let them empty their souls. And the stories that have come from that simple experiment! There were quite a few people that I personally identified with. And when you are going through something stressful, or have an impossible situation, there is something cathartic about hearing other people are in the same situation or feel the same as you do. So a big thank you to the author for deciding she wanted to do something to help others. It is sad that there are so many people out there that feel like they have no one safe to talk to.

Although I'm a YA librarian, I had to read this book and was so excited to see it on Netgalley! I loved these little vignettes, and the glimpse given to readers by the author into people's secret lives. Each person had their own very distinct voice and Dea Bala really honored that. What a unique book.

This collection of short, non-fiction stories was so powerful. The emotions were raw, the confessions didn't hold back and the stories were often upsetting. If you ever need your problems put into perspective and want to hear someone else's secrets, this is the book for you!

At times humorous and other times heart wrenching, this collection of personal stories and secrets will definitely appeal to those who like Humans of New York and Postsecret. There’s a lot of humanity on display here, at its best and worst. There are also one twist ending that left me breathing a sigh of relief.

If you want to see just how alike we all are — even in our many differences — Craigslist Confessionals is a really good read.

Regarding therapeutic culture, Vivian Gornick said that "it is the great illusion of our culture that what we confess to is who we are." Maybe she didn't mean this to sound tragic, but it does to me, tragic and pathetic. Confessional literature has never stopped being popular, and with the rise of the Internet, the line between journalism, personal essay, and memoir is now more blurred than ever. And upmarket fiction novels with voyeuristic themes--think The Girl on the Train or The Woman in the Window--are perennially adapted for TV and film to facilitate even easier consumption of narratives that are about as memorable and complex as an episode of Big Brother. The collective delusion that there is even an iota of intellectual or moral redemption in these narratives is the same delusion that allows for the publication of a book like Craigslist Confessional.

I wonder if it ever gave Dea Bala pause to consider the ethical ramifications of publishing strangers' stories, told in anonymity and confidence, for her own profit. Of course they are still anonymous, but I don't know if that makes it excusable. Let alone laudable. These vignettes certainly don't offer much in the way of literary quality, so the justification for their publication must lie elsewhere. According to the book's preface, these insights into strangers' private lives are inherently valuable for how they help the reader in their own life: providing closure, bestowing hope, and the old standby, developing empathy. No mention is made of the schadenfreude that many readers must feel in witnessing the criminality, humiliation, moral turpitude, and bad luck that constitute other people's suffering. "At least I don't have it that bad." Cultivating gratitude and perspective by comparing your own struggles to the misfortunes of others. Despite the author's best intentions, empathy really has very little to do with why books like this do so well.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.