A relentlessly positive and often convoluted message that will appeal mostly to Chopra’s core audience.
A heady prescription for maximum self-awareness.
Bestselling author and alternative medicine advocate Chopra (What Are You Hungry For?, 2013, etc.) continues his enlightenment crusade with a narrative encouraging readers to reach “beyond the mechanical side of life” and the limitations of their lives in order to “occupy metareality.” The author believes metareality to be the source of all creativity; to become awakened to it and move “beyond the illusion” of everyday perception is to become metahuman, which he equates to “tuning in to the whole radio band instead of one narrow channel.” Fans of Chopra’s spiritual enlightenment philosophies will digest these new dictums easily; others will find it difficult to sift through the great amount of referential supporting material. The text is a stew packed with discussions of neuroscience concepts, mystical Indian poetry, ego examination, psychedelic drug therapy, and discussions of how the “inflated promises” of religion “have lost their power to inspire devotion.” Chopra’s research and dedication to this mind-expanding field are impressive, but the resulting narrative is dizzying and frequently overwhelming. The author incorporates multiple-choice questionnaires, wakefulness exercises, and surveys into the text, and he diminishes his message with frequent subject detours and digressive commentary—specifically, the daily plan at the end, “31 Metahuman Lessons,” which seems separate from the core narrative’s message. Readers who are willing to wade through the dross will find pages of helpful direction on how to focus attention on improving one’s sense of worth and purpose. As always, Chopra’s main focus and intention are self-improvement and untapped personal potential and the discovery of new ways to live beyond current self-imposed limitations. Here, readers are required to make more of an investment of time and thought on a life plan that puts a new spin on more conventional spiritual interpretations of consciousness and reality.
A relentlessly positive and often convoluted message that will appeal mostly to Chopra’s core audience.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-307-33833-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
