How to Figure Out What to Do with Your Life by Jennifer Turliuk
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
I am most definitely not the target audience for this book and really should have done more of my due diligence on the author before I requested it. Even reading the introduction would have been enough to see that the author is personally interested in a start-up/VC culture and even though she often says the book is meant to be used for any kind of career journey, as a person who lives and works in Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of the jargon and mentality of that culture in this book. Which I certainly am exposed to plenty and didn’t really need more of.
While I liked the idea of the framework the author puts on the process of figuring out the next steps for your career, so much of this book is just not viable for you unless you’re in your twenties or single. Or at least not viable if you have responsibilities like kids and a mortgage and cannot leave your day job to “shadow” other jobs.
There’s nothing wrong with this book. I think the framework the author lays out might be totally viable for others but just not the right thing for me with where I am in my life/career.
I do want to highlight one major caveat however. There are a lot of references to people who “made it” despite not finishing a degree, or not starting out in a job with secure paycheck, etc etc in this book. Oprah and Steve Jobs, and Zuckerberg are exceptions. There are way more people who drop out of school and don’t become billionaires or people who take risks that derail their lives in ways that aren’t easily recoverable. I do think taking calculated/thoughtful risks, especially early in your life, is a good thing, but I am weary when all the examples all the time are the exceptions and not a full picture.
But then again I’m a parent so maybe I am optimizing on being safe.
with gratitude to netgalley and Dundurn Press for an advanced copy in return for an honest review.
Ps: I will not rate this book on goodreads because I don’t want to skew the rating since I am the first review and it’s not the author’s fault that I am not the target audience for this book.
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The Anxiety and Depression Workbook: Simple, Effective CBT Techniques to Manage Moods and Feel Better Now by Michael A. Tompkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“The skills in this workbook will increase the flexibility of your emotional system and, in the
process, build your tolerance to emotions such as anxiety and depression. Learning that you can tolerate your anxious or depressed feelings is how you recover from the uncomfortable feelings that are limiting your life.”
This is a fantastic and practical book if you suffer from anxiety or depression. The book is full of specific techniques you can use to move through different ways in which you’re emotionally inflexible as the authors frame it.
Once you get clear on your values and set goals, the book is divided into different sections to help you build flexible attention, thinking, action, and tolerance. There’s also a section on gratitude and self-compassion.
“Ultimately, your recovery depends on having both meaningful goals that are in the service of your values, as well as a clear plan to achieve those goals. A goal is not the same as a plan. The goal is the destination you hope to reach; the plan is the set of distinct steps you’ll take to reach the goal. Most important, your recovery depends on your willingness to change your behaviors or actions— and connecting your actions to your values will help you do this.”
As the authors introduce each technique, they give examples of different characters who each have different anxiety/depression-related problems and they show how the character uses that technique so you can see it in action and then they have an empty form for you to fill with your own data. This makes it really easy to understand the technique and see it applied.
“Deep and lasting change—the kind of change that transforms your life—begins by building your tolerance to your intense anxious and depressed feelings”
I really liked this book and will be using several of these techniques throughout my life.
with gratitude to netgalley and New Harbinger for an advanced copy in return for an honest review
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Dear Child by Romy Hausmann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a crazy ride this book was! The blurb said it was a mix between Room and Gone Girl. I absolutely hated Gone Girl with a passion and Room made me super sad so I wasn’t sure if this one was for me but then I needed something fast and good and the reviews were so high that I decided I should give it a chance.
I didn’t stop reading it until I finished. The audio narration was excellent and the whole time I knew there was something messed up but I just couldn’t put my finger on it so I kept going, waiting for things to unravel. In the end, this was way better, for me, than Gone Girl though the Room-like parts did make me very sad but because it was in and out of that part of the story, it didn’t feel the same deep sadness Room felt like for me.
If you like psychological thrillers and weren’t triggered by the content of Room, you will like this one.
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Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
3.5 stars.
I had read that this book was fantastic so even though the blurb didn’t sound like my type of book, I grabbed it anyway. In the end, I am glad I read it but I do think it wasn’t my type of book. The pacing of the story is interesting because there’s so much action but also so much description so it felt both fast and slow. I liked the different characters and how complex they each were in their own ways. I liked how it didn’t feel stereotypical. The whole time I was reading it, I thought it would make an excellent movie.
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The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book was on so many of the lists I’ve seen in the last few weeks that I felt like I had to read it. It started out really fun but I started to get mixed up pretty quickly and because I was listening on audio and I was only able to listen in bits and pieces throughout the week, I lost track of the story and the characters quicker than I would have liked. I still finished it but I’m afraid I didn’t give it its due. I plan to read the next one on paper or listen to it in one sitting.
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Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am usually a big fan of Jackson’s novels. I find the pacing, the character development and the plot intriguing and engaging, so I was really looking forward to this one.
And while I did read it all pretty quickly, this wouldn’t be at the top of my Jackson novels. It’s almost as if it’s two books. The first one is the plight of a mother whose baby is kidnapped and she’s doing what she needs to do to get her baby back and then the second book is the backstory of the kidnapper and the event that led her to it.
Either story, fully fleshed out might have been interesting but together it felt disjointed.
There are also several trigger warnings that go with this story, so please do look up those before you read it. I am not usually easily triggered but because the second part of the story felt so disjointed for me, I didn’t see it coming.
Even with all that, I still read this story fast and wanted to keep reading to see what happened and why. As with many Jackson novels, the characters were real and the story moved at a pace that made it hard to put down.
with gratitude to Harper Audio and netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
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Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting by Lisa Genova
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“If we want to remember something, above all else, we need to notice what is going on. Noticing requires two things: perception (seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling) and attention.”
When I first picked up this book, I thought it would be slow-moving as most of the non-fictions are for me, so I geared myself up to “slog” through it.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
From the first page onward, I was completely hooked. I read the whole book in one sitting and underlined passage after passage. I also told my colleagues about this book and quoted passages from it, shared ideas from it and would not stop talking about the endless ways in which the content fascinated me.
“What we remember about the past is also influenced by how we feel in the present. Our opinions and emotional state now color what we remember from what happened last year. And so, in revisiting episodic memories, we often reshape them.”
I’d read Genova’s fiction before so I knew she was a good writer. I also knew she was a neuroscientist and had studied memory. I’ve read about memory and brain in several books and I’ve taken classes so while much of what was in this book wasn’t completely new to me, I loved the simple, relatable and practical way in which Genova laid it out. I loved her practical tips.
If you’re interested in memory and how we remember (and how we forget) I promise you will be glad you read this book.
with gratitude to netgalley and Rodale for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.
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The Lowering Days: A Novel by Gregory Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a gift of a book this was. There are so many things that I loved about this book but at the very top of my list is the exquisite writing. There are so many sentences in this book that stopped me in my track and made me rewind the audio to listen again. It’s truly exquisite writing.
This is the story of a small town in Maine along the Penobscot River. The town is adjacent to where the Penobscot Nation is and the town’s mill is harming their land. When the mill is burned to the ground on the eve of its reopening, it causes ripple effects across the town.
Most of the book is told from David Almerin Ames’ perspective as when he’s old and looking back to this time in his life. There is a wide range of issues covered in the book: identity, family, marriage, racism, war (Vietnam) and what it means to be man.
This is a quiet, slow-moving book. Even though a lot does happen in the book, it’s not about the action or the pace, it’s about the slow build of the characters, who they are, how they interact, how their lives intersect to both help each other and cause harm to each other.
The characters are well developed and complex and memorable. The setting is vivid and most definitely a part of the story, too. Absolutely magnificent. I have enjoyed every moment I spent with this book.
with gratitude to netgalley and Haper Audio for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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