#13 – Helping Me Help Myself

I had brought the ARC of Beth Lisick’s Helping Me Help Myself to Mexico with me, and had planned to read it on the plane home, but then I got swept away in What is the What. Most of my thoughts about the book are already noted over at The Savvy Reader so I won’t go into much more detail except to say that I’m really excited to send the author some questions next week for an email interview.

After a particularly grueling New Year’s Eve party, Lisick decides to spend the next 12 months working through the works of 10 self-help guru’s in an attempt to honestly change her life from the inside out, as she says, “What if I could just look at everything in my life that was bugging me, everything I wanted to make better, and systematically fix it all?” And despite being utterly skeptical of the whole self-help racket, she actually manages to find kernels of good advice in just about every aspect of her ‘year spent on the bring of [her] comfort zone.’

This is not a self-help book, but a book about helping yourself, about discovering what holds you back, about finding humour and dedicating yourself to a cause even if it means spending a whack of money to attend a Richard Simmons fitness cruise. It’s about approaching change honestly and openly, and taking what you need and leaving behind the rest, the bits that seem false, that seem like a racket, and improving your character because of it.

Also, it’s got a banana suit. And who doesn’t love a 30-something woman dressed up in a banana suit to pay the bills. Seriously?

As with many of my ARCs, I have no need to keep them and am very happy to use Canada Post, so, who wants my copy?

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: My own Achilles heel when it comes to home organization, the absolute exhaustion at the end of a work day that leads to every single piece of clothing being piled up on a chair instead of in my closet.