A heartfelt but narrow prescription for finding a partner and creating a loving heterosexual marriage.
A Christianity-based approach to relationships driven by positive thinking, based on the authors’ own courtship and marriage.
In this debut self-help book, Palmer-Perera and Perera present a 12-step technique for self-improvement, particularly in the areas of dating and marriage, based on their Christian faith, with their own marriage serving as the primary example. The book follows the pattern set by The Secret and similar books, encouraging the reader to adopt a positive mindset and act accordingly, with the assurance that success will follow: “This universe is designed to serve you. By birth you are supposed to rule over this place, subdue it and take dominion over it so that you can live a life that is fruitful and delectable.” Each chapter introduces one of the authors’ “universal laws” followed by a case study and a series of Bible verses that provides answers to questions the authors pose. Most of the examples presented pertain to relationships, but others, like the story of a woman who won the lottery after she “wrote the number 112 million down on a piece of paper” and “gained confidence that she had already won the lottery,” demonstrate the broader applications (and limits) of the book’s philosophy. Interstitial sections lucidly and gradually develop Palmer-Perera’s and her husband’s stories of overcoming failed relationships and personal challenges to find happiness together, which may offer hope or guidance to readers facing similar situations. The guidelines here suggest a clear distinction between male and female roles and apply only in a heteronormative context: same-sex relationships are categorized as “breaking a universal law.” While the authors write with enthusiasm and a clear belief in the viability of their 12-second plan, their arguments are most likely to appeal to readers who share their interpretation of Christianity.
A heartfelt but narrow prescription for finding a partner and creating a loving heterosexual marriage.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5085-5839-2
Page Count: 374
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2015
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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