Gretchen Rubin

As usual, I thoroughly yet enjoyed another book about how to make your life better. This time the focus was how to find happiness. If Gretchen had not gone into spiritual, it would have been five stars. However, I think she is way off the mark to think Buddhism is the secret to a good life. I know that is a difference of religious opinion, but for me to ignore it is for me to deny what I personally know as a true and and authentic Christian life. Instead of harping on a decision that is a life choice, and in the spirit of trying to keep the peace and be happy as the book quite frequently suggests, I pray that the author's choice of a higher realm of thinking will conclude one day in a way that she will realize what the ultimate happiness is. I still feel that a lot can be gained from this book to make one question how words and actions can directly influence your own personal happiness. Be warned, this book is LONG and can't be read quickly to fully digest it.… (more)

I have decided that anything Gretchen Rubin writes is going to be great. The first book I read, "The Four Tendencies,"describes four distinct categories of people and how they react in certain situations. This book is a continuation of that, but based on who you are and how you react, it delves more deeply into discovering the ways to make positive change in your life by rewarding yourself in a way that works. I really enjoyed this book. There is so much to digest that it is really hard to try to read this in one sitting. I look forward to even more books by Gretchen. She has such a huge understanding on the types of people that I had never seen discussed elsewhere.… (more)

3.5 stars

I love goals. I love making them and tracking them, and I love hearing others' goals and their progress on reaching them. So naturally, I enjoyed Gretchen's project. I appreciated that she included examples of her successes and failures. I liked that she incorporated statistics/studies into her book, but correlated them to her challenges, making them more memorable.

I have to admit, her "Secrets of Adulthood" and "Splendid Truths" were a bit much for me, and she kept repeating them over and over again... After she began including comments from her blog, I also started to tire of that - a few well-placed comments would have been fine, but sometimes she included so many that they went on for pages and simply felt like filler. The book could have easily been reduced by 50-100 pages.

There's nothing new or profound in this book (there usually isn't in this kind of writing) but it was still a fun read.… (more)

This is not a book. This is a series of poor personal rants, or substandard blog posts at best.

The author is extremely lucky to have so many supportive people -judging by what she says in the book- in her life enabling her to publish such shallow, incoherent, and incomplete personal observations that can only apply to her own life, as if they were "revelations" that can be dropped on the masses to enlighten them!

The readers are not as lucky as the author though. How this book got any star ratings, in any factor or criteria a book can be rated in, higher than 2 stars is really beyond my comprehension.

I created a new shelf, "Won't continue reading", because of this book.… (more)