This month was a bit of a flop reading wise. I’m actually quite proud of myself with doing at least one nonfiction a month lately, and this month even two!! I’m really getting into the self-help genre…who would have thunk it 🙂
As always, thanks to Jana and Steph for hosting the linkup that brings all us book nerds together 🙂
The title is linked to Goodreads and the cover is linked to Amazon. The Amazon link is an affiliated link*.
The Devil You Know by Elisabeth de Mariaffi
First of all, I mixed this book up with another one by the same name…FAIL. I have the other one on hold, but did not realize my mistake until I read this one. Huge palm plant. I considered putting it down about 20% in. The writing is not good, I hated how it was written/presented. It was like reading a story told by someone who mind keeps wondering. It could have been a much better book with better editing. The storyline did pull me in, but even by the end I was meh with the whole thing. This was not a good use of time.
I’m a bit torn on this one. I liked it, but felt like it was drawn out. The plot was good enough, and the writing was good, but it wasn’t all that compelling. I don’t know, I just wasn’t pulled into the story like I would have liked. I feel like it could have been shorter and not lost anything. I’m glad I tried out one Hill’s books, and would give him another shot. I could certainly feel some similarities in his writing and King’s. I think I might have thought that even if I didn’t know prior that he is Stephen King’s son.
The Girl With A Clock For a Heart by Peter Swanson
I felt the story pulled me in immediately but didn’t go anywhere. I seriously, seriously hated the end. I thought maybe the book had a cliche and it didn’t load fully. I’m wondering if I should bother with the The Kind Worth Killing. For me, a huge part of the story is to find out what happened.
Life and Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan
This was an Amazon free book. I didn’t care for it, but pushed through to the end. One of these days I might learn to just put a book down that I’m just not that into. I didn’t like the way it was narrated and found the main character annoying/boring/unrealistic…all of these at different points while reading.
The Time Chamber by Daria Song: A Magical Story and Coloring Book
This was a Blogging For Books** order. It has a beautiful cover, and I love the copper colored accents. Very light on story and plenty of illustrations. The “story” as it is, is really maybe a totally of 10-12 sentences spread throughout the book. As far as a coloring book goes, it certainly has some beautiful illustrations and pages. Some pages/elements I don’t think were well designed for coloring. I think the detail and artistic illustrations makes it a good addition to the adult coloring market. However the story is very child like, but many of the illustrations have such small details, it may not be that successful as a child’s coloring book. I’ve included a few sample picture pages below.
Esther (Local Adventurer) did a whole post on adult coloring books if you want to see more options. Also if you live in San Diego, Pigment had a TON on my last visit at the end of October. **I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam
I surprisingly felt like I got a lot out of this book. This book is centered around working moms and how they use their time. There were parts that I very briefly skimmed or skipped since they don’t apply at all to my life, like how to make “quality” time with your kid (tips on activities not how to “make” the time). Even though it wasn’t geared towards me as a reader I did find it to offer good advice, and more importantly, it was thought provoking. My personal take-aways included:
- Be more mindful with my time. I know I 100% am not that intention or mindful of how I spend my time. I would like to work on this and in fact you can see a little of this reflected in my November goals post.
- Find and plan activities I (or me & P) will enjoy and schedule them. Not rocket-science with this one and we certainly do a lot, but we also fall into ruts or the “what do you want to do, I don’t know what do you want to do”. Make better use of weekday evenings, we really have fallen into a bit of a rut here. Prior to a few months ago we would at least schedule one dinner out a week, but we totally let that go. We picked it back up a few weeks here at the end of the month, but I want us to be more mindful.
- Similar to the above, but more me oriented, keep a list of things I “want” to work on, instead of things I feel like I “should” work on.
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Mixed feelings on this book. I thought she had some excellent points/suggestions, and I could really get a sense of her passion. However the beginning and the end of the book seemed very repetitive, and felt like filler. The meat of the book is in the middle. In the beginning I was thinking ok where is this going, as she talks over and over about what she use to do when she came home from school. I can appreciate some of her theories. Personally, I’ve been trying to buy and keeping clothes that I only love, and feel good in. As I wear items and they annoy me or I just don’t feel good in them, I’ve been discarding them. I really question how well this could be applied to families or men in general. She only mentions one client specifically that was male, and only one couple, the rest seemed primarily to be women. I think this is a good book to read, especially if you struggle with overflowing clothes or other areas, it could help you change your mindset a little. Of course some parts of the book I just can’t, but I’m not going to be judgemental on them here as it may really make a connection with others 🙂 Some advice really hit home, like not downgrading items to loungewear (totally something I do and either don’t wear or don’t feel comfortable in), and feeling guilty about items I’ve hardly used. I think this book was a worthwhile read for me.
What is one “self-help” you have read that really got you thinking or changed your lifestyle/habits?
Have you joined the latest trend and tried out an adult coloring book?
I’m pretty sure I’ve told you this before but my grandma gave me the best advice years and years ago and I still apply it to this day: if you don’t like a book, don’t force yourself to finish it. There are too many great books out there to read to waste your time on a crappy one.
Smart lady, and some good advice…it’s just so hard for me! I have a when you start, you should finish mentality, or sometimes it’s just I have to know how it ends 🙂
I really like Laura Vanderkam’s perspective on time management. I’ve read her books, including this one, and while the priviledged tone bothers me at times, if you can weed through that, you’ll get gems. I love the idea of core competencies and making untraditional schedules (ex., family breakfast instead of dinner if dinner doesn’t work for your family). I have the tidying up book on hold at the library for approximately 2934023 months now.
I find time management and habit topics interesting. I think Vanderkam really just got me thinking about how I’m using my time and looking differently at “free” time. Making the most of the day.
I keep seeing “Life And Other Near-Death Experiences” and get it mixed up with “Love and Other Near-Death Experiences” that I read a couple of months ago! I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to read it however I think I may have gotten it as a free book as well.
Love and Other Near-Death Experiences sounds much more interesting than Life and Other Near-Death Experiences. Book titles can be confusing 🙂 This past month I picked up the wrong The Devil You Know!!
Um, “Love” was OK. It started out hilarious and I thought I would really enjoy it but then it ended leaving me ‘meh’
Oh no, that’s the worst, a weak ending or a book that just kind of turns bad.
Everyone keeps gushing over Magic of Tidying Up and I keep thinking that it probably makes some good points…but probably ones that are common sense to most people with some fluff in between. But perhaps it is more about being inspiring and motivating to actually do those things? And I probably need some of that motivation…hahah. maybe I will try it out.
The Magic Of Tidying Up makes some good points about how to look at things we might be holding onto, put aren’t serving a purpose. There is also a certain spin to things that I find pretty out there. I think it’s a worthwhile read for most people.
I haven’t read Kondo, but I already know I don’t buy into her thing 100%. I still plan on perusing it at some point and will surely take something beneficial away from it though.
I liked The Kind Worth Killing. I think it’s worth giving it a go. I don’t recall anything being left unresolved in it.
I’ll probably still try out The Kind Worth Killing. When I first started reading it, I was like oh no, this is one of those book people fave about and I loath (or just don’t get), but in the end it was useful. It’s the kind of a book you should go into reading with a grain of salt.
When I first head about Magic of Tidying Up, I snapped to attention. And then I realized that I’m the least untidy person in the world and I don’t really need to be told why cleaning/organizing/throwing stuff out is a good thing, because I’m usually the maniac telling other people to do it. Still, I thought it could have some useful insight, but I’ve heard from a few other people that a lot of it’s just filler and repetitive. I still may check it out though. My favorite self-help (I guess that’s the genre it would be) book I’ve read is Roadmap. It’s really shed some clarity and light on making career and life goals and I recommend it to pretty much everybody!
Thanks for the recommendation Alyssa! I’ve not heard of Roadmap, I’ll add it to the list. Sometimes I like to just read books, even if the whole thing is not “helpful” but there may be some really usefully tip in there…of course sometimes it is just a waste of time 🙂
i totally agree about the magic of tidying up book. i read it quickly, took some points from it, but there was a lot of filler (not to mention ridiculous stuff i have no intention of doing). it did make it easier to purge some clothing items i had held on to. i had a hard time previously because i had spent a lot of money and didn’t want to be wasteful, but i was holding on to things that i would never wear, so that did help me get rid of those things and be like ‘okay. you’ve served your purpose, thank you goodbye’. obviously i didn’t say that to my clothes haha. i really enjoyed how to win friends and influence people.. it’s a bit boring at times, and it’s not a new book, but honestly a lot of it can still be applied today and i think a lot of people would benefit from it, if you haven’t read it already.
I have not read How to Win Friends and Influence People, I will have to look it up! I know I’m not going to “talk” to each piece of clothing as I put it away, I’m sorry much of that was just too far out there. I can understand being grateful for what you have and all that, but she went a bit too far.
I totally agree with and relate to not finishing books when they aren’t worth your time, or finishing them because you have to know what happened and them being a waste. It’s so frustrating! I totally downgrade my clothes to loungewear, too. We are running out of hangers so I think that’s a sign that I need to purge some things because I wear the same clothes over and over. And I just got on board the adult coloring book train! I mostly only do it while watching Dateline or football – things that don’t require 100% of my attention. It’s fun!
I’m so bad about wanting to find out what happens, even if the writing or characters are subpar. I always wear the same thing over and over, and have really made an effort to only keep or buy things I love. The coloring is much more enjoyable with better pencils 🙂 I want some markers too, but just splurged on the pencils.
I have the “Tidying Up” book on my to-read list but part of me feels like it might be a little too simplistic (a lot of self-help books are). Maybe I’ll try it.
I have just bought 3 of those coloring books for Christmas gifts…I grabbed The Secret Garden ones at Costco. They were only $9 there! I think they would be stress relievers…
I think The Magic of Tidying Up made some good points, but not overall ground-breaking. I’m glad I took the time to read it. I have The Secret Garden postcards, and finally bought some better color pencils, so it is much more enjoyable now.