I was ecstatic to find this book on a topic about living in a city I don't particular love. Mostly, I just stick around because it's not a bad place to live. Where can I trademark that for a city slogan?

You could just read the checklists at the end of the chapters, or if you really lazy, just read the names of the chapters and get the gist of the book.

Melody is referring to the geographic place, in particular your city jurisdiction, that you live. Could we expand on that and learn to love WHEREVER you are. That means your house, your neighborhood .... your body, your mindset, your heartset. Your relationship, your situation. Your country, your world, your universe. Or just plain old you.





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I saw very kind words on the front of my edition by Gretchen Rubin. I was unimpressed but decided to read it anyway.

I'm disappointed. I wanted to like it... we have so much in common: English, family, some locations, and other personality things. When she talked about herself I usually found myself thinking "Me too."

But she didn't do that often. In fact, 9/10ths of every chapter was her (sometimes questionable) research, or her chat with a cool person that she traveled to the other side of the country to interview, or even odder asides about people you didn't know who they were... but then, after flipping back a few pages, realized she had referenced at the beginning of the chapter.

And I'm not sure that the 1/10th really counted anyway. She talks about wanting to fit in and belong to her community (which is a worthy goal) but a) forgets to mention things like "join a club," briefly mentions religion (but, given the amount of times she references friends/acquaintances from that religion she should probably focus on it more), and b) starts some of these projects with phrases like "A year and 1/2 after we moved here" or "2 years later" ... this makes it seem less of a genuine desire to feel belonging so much as "my project isn't long enough" filler.

Stunt Journalism has to be done right to be interesting. AJ Jacobs does it right, jumps in with both feet into the deep end (or at least he used to. He's getting a bit soft as he ages). This was too much research, too little implementation, and too little editing. ( )

For me, a life-changing book...!
Thank you melody Warnick. ( )

Ideas and suggestions on how to learn to appreciate where you live, be it a life long residence or a short term stay. I appreciated the ideas and suggestions such as going to city council meetings as well as supporting the
local independent stores and eateries. Very good to have as a resource. ( )

I read this with a book group discussion and I’m so glad it was chosen for the spring read.

While there was no new earth shattering information for me, there was so many things worth thinking about and considering. It took me a while to fully get into it because at first I didn’t identify with the author, but the more I read along the more I liked the book.

I’d already done some of what’s suggested to feel at home but I see now that I can do much more. I’m hoping that remembering some of the tips and actions mentioned in the book will be useful for me when I have to move, whether it’s to a different dwelling, neighborhood, city, or state, especially if I have to move to a place I don’t immediately find desirable to live.

At first I just read it as an autobiography, and I was enjoying her journey. I even eventually identified with her, given what she was researching and what she said about what her ideal town might be good at: roller coasters, art museums, independent bookstores. She “got me” with those three examples.

To give an idea of what subjects she covers, the chapter titles are: The Lost Are of Staying Put, Lace Up Your Sneakers, Buy Local, Say Hi to Your Neighbors, Do Something Fun, Commune with Nature, Volunteer, Eat Local Food, Get More Political, Create Something, Stay Loyal, Settle Down.

The author was a “mover” and was trying to learn to be a “stayer”. I’m definitely a “stayer” and in some ways a “rooted” too.

I thought the mix of her story, others’ personal stories, and hard research results were interesting and highly entertaining, and smartly done and well written. I thought many of the statistics and the studies reported on were fascinating and I enjoyed learning the information. While much was common sense, there were some surprises.

She presents many good ideas about things to do to encourage loving where you’re living now, including a helpful list at the end of every chapter. This is a book I’d actually like to own, but for now at least I’ll hope that wherever I will live my library will have it available for borrowing. As I read it I thought on one particular friend (an incredibly rooted one) and I’ve told her about it and encouraged her to read it. I’ll even consider getting it for her for her next birthday.

There were so many fun activities mentioned that could be used by everybody, whether they live in rural areas (she didn’t really focus too much on them but many of the ideas could work there too) or towns or big cities. I’d never heard of cash mobs, the chalk festival sounded fun, all the ideas for community building seemed worth doing, whether it was to get to know people or to support people/businesses in your area.

I’d love to see all city/town planners and leaders read this, but also everybody. I know that if many people in my immediate neighborhood read it and even a few people tried to implement a couple of the actions in this book, where I live would be a better place. I think that’s true for every city, town, area, neighborhood, street/block, probably everywhere in the world.

It took me a long time to read this book. I was reading it concurrently with other books. But every chapter stands on its own and it worked well for me to read it chapter by chapter. Overall, it was a very enjoyable reading experience. ( )