An earnest, step-by-step guide for helping overstressed Christians back into a relationship with God.
A jeremiad against the evils of perfectionism.
Stough (Healing Letters, 2010) takes a stern but compassionate look at modern society’s drive toward perfectionism, which she views as a kind of impiety. She initially surveys some of the fears of modern life—a backpack may now be a bomb, or a broody schoolboy might be contemplating a massacre. It’s “culturally numbing,” she writes, “and leaves parents scrambling for alternative educational choices.” The resulting pressures, she says, prompt many in secular societies to strive to work harder than ever and attempt to fix everything themselves. Perfectionism, she writes, is quickly becoming “anxiety’s new drug or spirituality,” but “it doesn’t fix anything.” In fact, she observes, it’s counterproductive, as it makes people think they’re taking care of problems “when really they’re adding to it with its slew of negative side effects.” At heart, she views this reaction as one of pride, and it brings out some of the text’s most strident preaching: “Like Lucifer,” she warns, “your pursuit of greater perfection will lead to the fall of your kingdom.” This well-meaning book aims not only to be an antidote to such perfectionism, but also a workbook to help readers find their way to a loving, accepting friendship with God. As such, she urges readers to take their insecurities and imperfections before the Lord, looking to Proverbs: “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Each chapter includes excerpts from her journal, effectively personalizing her own struggle to overcome self-indulgent perfectionism: “There are only two choices,” she writes, “pleasing God or pleasing self.” Christian readers feeling overwhelmed by the demands of modern society will find Stough’s book to be a clear call for them to take a moment to stop and remember the basics.
An earnest, step-by-step guide for helping overstressed Christians back into a relationship with God.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5127-0585-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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