An earnest and straightforward, if familiar, guide to transforming one’s routines.
Better habits are the way to a happier, healthier lifestyle according to Antonenko’s debut self-help book.
Many people feel stuck when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight, remaining fit, and achieving other life goals. They want to change but lack the motivation to do so. The author, a professional health coach, reassures readers that transformation is possible, no matter how bleak things may seem at the present moment. She knows this from experience, having faced many challenges on her journey to happiness, including the suicide of her first husband and chronic health problems of her own, such as ulcerative colitis. The author draws on this personal experience as well as her career as she outlines a multistep process for eliminating “patterns of destructive thinking” and developing healthy habits that she promises will lead to lasting, consistent improvements in one’s life. It begins, she says, with focusing on one’s momentum and “harnessing energy” so that one can get unstuck from old habits. Subsequent steps address one’s diet, mindset, and physical movement. The final step is “mastery,” in which repetition leads to “uncovering new patterns [that] can release us from lousy past behaviours and stop us from being tainted by our past mistakes, failures, and setbacks.” Throughout, Antonenko offers a supportive voice that enthusiastically urges the reader to “design the life of your dreams.” The advice is largely a mix of generic tips for healthy living (such as getting enough sleep, embracing mindfulness, eating a balanced diet, including minimizing consumption of sugars and processed food) and common self-help bromides about visualizing success and ignoring what other people think. However, Antonenko wisely focuses on permanently changing behaviors rather than promoting expedient solutions that may be harder to stick with in the long term. The book includes links to supplemental material on the author’s website, such as printable affirmation cards, a meal planner, and a separate exercise guide. This work stands well enough on its own, but it’s also intended as an introduction to Antonenko’s life-coaching offerings, which include follow-up courses, fitness accessories, and nutritional supplements.
An earnest and straightforward, if familiar, guide to transforming one’s routines.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5043-2079-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: BalboaPressAU
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
