A sage and caring guide to facing one’s fears about money.
Sociologist, entrepreneur, and financial wellness coach Vickery offers a timely volume of financial advice and sound, positive encouragement.
The author makes a strong case for understanding financial trauma as something that one must work through, despite the hardships of daily living. Drawing on wisdom from other self-help titles, such as Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), Vickery builds trust with readers by tactfully using terms of therapy to reconfigure misconceptions about money and its emotional responses. Her compassionate voice makes the text appealingly readable as she empathizes with people with a wide range of money worries. Above all, Vickery values communication as a key method to find new ways to understand financial matters, whether one is communicating with parents, spouses, children, or, above all, oneself. The author illustrates several scenarios from her clients, bringing real-life resonance to various lessons; some focus on couples’ financial dynamics in particular. These slice-of-life chapters are where the book truly shines, and its reflective questions to help readers carry on with further work are a bonus. Some readers may balk at talk of “abundance,” but it’s important to note that Vickery doesn’t stray into ideas of manifestation; instead, she stays grounded in here-and-now money matters. Helpful topics include budgeting, gender inequality, travel, scarcity mindsets, debt, and unemployment. Readers will find themselves in good hands when later chapters discuss advertising and consumerism, and their effect on the collective psyche; Vickery’s takeaways feel notably helpful regarding such fraught topics. She effectively reminds readers that financial wellness is never out of reach and must be viewed as a dialogue between one’s framing of a situation and one’s material needs and wants. By the conclusion, readers will agree that one should discuss financial matters in such an open and emotionally healthy manner more often.
A sage and caring guide to facing one’s fears about money.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798896363002
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Career and business advice for the hashtag generation. For all its self-absorption, this book doesn’t offer much reflection...
A Dumpster diver–turned-CEO details her rise to success and her business philosophy.
In this memoir/business book, Amoruso, CEO of the Internet clothing store Nasty Gal, offers advice to young women entrepreneurs who seek an alternative path to fame and fortune. Beginning with a lengthy discussion of her suburban childhood and rebellious teen years, the author describes her experiences living hand to mouth, hitchhiking, shoplifting and dropping out of school. Her life turned around when, bored at work one night, she decided to sell a few pieces of vintage clothing on eBay. Fast-forward seven years, and Amoruso was running a $100 million company with 350 employees. While her success is admirable, most of her advice is based on her own limited experiences and includes such hackneyed lines as, “When you accept yourself, it’s surprising how much other people will accept you, too.” At more than 200 pages, the book is overlong, and much of what the author discusses could be summarized in a few tweets. In fact, much of it probably has been: One of the most interesting sections in the book is her description of how she uses social media. Amoruso has a spiritual side, as well, and she describes her belief in “chaos magic” and “sigils,” a kind of wishful-thinking exercise involving abstract words. The book also includes sidebars featuring guest “girlbosses” (bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs) who share equally clichéd suggestions for business success. Some of the guidance Amoruso offers for interviews (don’t dress like you’re going to a nightclub), getting fired (don’t call anyone names) and finding your fashion style (be careful which trends you follow) will be helpful to her readers, including the sage advice, “You’re not special.”
Career and business advice for the hashtag generation. For all its self-absorption, this book doesn’t offer much reflection or insight.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16927-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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