The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons down on Mischief Farm by Hilarie Burton Morgan

One Tree Hill happened to me at the height of my TV addiction: that sweet spot in high school and college where I literally had a calendar of what shows aired and when to help me keep up (and the time and energy to sustain that level of obsession). My roommate and I dropped everything, every week, to watch the final season as it aired. What a time to be alive. We wouldn't know until years later, until #MeToo, how toxic it was for women in the writer's room and on the set of OTH. Which is why, when I saw that Hilarie Burton had written a memoir, it made me wonder what she'd have to say. The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons down on Mischief Farm is NOT the memoir I expected her to write. But it's one I love with my whole heart. Disenchanted by her experience in Hollywood, Burton was searching for something. She found it in an unconventional relationship with Jeffery Dean Morgan, in a tiny town in rural NY, in renovation and farm life, in becoming a mother, a business owner, in finding a community, and ultimately, in finding herself. That's not to say it's an easy read - their struggles with fertility were heartbreaking - but generally the memoir feels like it's ripped from one of the Christmas movies Burton often stars in. Reading The Rural Diaries felt like running into a friend you haven't seen in a decade, and sitting down to talk about what's happened since you've last seen each other. I don't think you need to have been a fan of Burton's to enjoy this, but if you are a fan, you'll love it.

TW: miscarriage, infertility