Publisher: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins
Author Beth Lisick deals a serious blow to the self-help world in her hilarious new book, “Helping Me Help Myself.” With a slightly jaded eye, Lisick was never one taken in by gurus claiming to solve their followers’ problems, despite her own home setting of San Francisco (a land abundant with life coaches and spiritual guides). Still, her own disorganized, slightly manic life had reached fever pitch, and in 2006, Lisick decided to try and conquer her problems (maybe even come up with a whole new life) by tackling a new problem (and self-help solution) each month.
From her marriage to her messy house to her lack of exercise, Lisick brings along the ability to laugh at herself, even as she attempts one self-help program after another. From the best sellers of the business to their sponsored seminars, she takes on the most famous in the self-help business. From “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” to “The Artist’s Way” to “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” she reads and follows the self-help advice on offer. She exercises to the oldies with Richard Simmons aboard his Caribbean cruise, she has a personal consultation with organizing expert Julie Morgenstern, and she meets Jack Canfield on his home turf. Each encounter is funnier than the next.
Although she thought she could remain above her experiment, Lisick finds herself succumbing to the experts’ advice…well, at least some of the time. If nothing else, she determines that her problems may be even worse than she imagined before she started on this journey. Readers will find a sympathetic friend in Lisick and thank their lucky stars they don’t have to go through such rigors themselves.
Instead, readers get to sit back and enjoy the follies resulting from this self-help journey through the year. Lisick is the perfect foil: She can laugh at her own absurd steps to self-improvement, even while taking a gentler approach with the proponents of these methods. She opens up her dysfunctional life for her readers, and bares the messy basement any self-conscious reader would hide from the company. In the end, we get to know and like Lisick, and find that she’s pretty great just the way she started out. Still, we wouldn’t have missed the fun!
The above review was contributed by: Christine Zibas. Christine has spent all of her life in love with books, and most of her life working with words. She has a B.A. in Political Science from
WesternIllinoisUniversity and did advanced studies in politics and publishing at WIU, OxfordUniversity, GeorgeWashingtonUniversity, and Stanford. To read more of Christine's Reviews CLICK HERE
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