“I wear a sash like a beauty queen,” writes Carly Israel, “except mine reads Broken.”

A child of alcoholics and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, Israel felt pressured to deny that anything was wrong at home. To the outside world, she was an overachieving, straight-A student, but the reality included substance abuse starting at age nine, an eating disorder, exercising to the point of injury, and eventually, in college, a suicide attempt.

The process of getting sober meant realizing how much she was affected by the traumas suffered by her parents and grandparents, and finding a version of God that made sense to her.  

As her marriage unraveled and her son’s health challenges continued, Israel realized that her earlier conception of God needed to change.

As she finds a soulmate and embarks on a new marriage and a reoriented relationship with God, she also begins a daily practice of gratitude. Throughout Seconds and Inches are thank-you letters that Israel has written to loved ones and supportive friends, but also to schoolyard bullies and uncaring medical personnel, all of whom have taught her important lessons and helped her become the person she is: “a badass, sparkly, lit-up, on fire, brutally honest, potty-mouthed, tattooed woman.”

As Jennifer Pastiloff writes in her foreword to the book, when you’ve finished listening to this “haunting and beautiful” memoir, “you will want to go out and live fully. You will want to stop hiding and accept your imperfect, perfect self. You will want to start telling the truth about who you are.”

A story of recovery and transformation, Seconds and Inches is also a thoughtful reflection on generational trauma, gratitude, and forgiveness.