Nonfiction Book Reviews

Sleeping with a Stranger: How I Survived Marriage to a Child Molester by Patricia Wiklund was filed in the 921’s section at the library, which for the non-librarians out there, means that it was labeled as an autobiography.  I saw it while doing check-in (of course - that’s happy hour for a bookaholic like me) and thought that it would be along the lines of A Child Called It, where the author would talk about her life in general, and in particular, what happened in her marriage to the child molester.

That was not at all what the book was.  I’m thinking seriously of asking the library to relabel and categorize it, because it shouldn’t be counted as a 921 at all, but instead a self-help book focused on wives whose husbands are child molesters.

Patricia Wiklund talks about what happened in her own marriage in fairly generic details from page 3 - 14 (the first chapter of the book).  The entire rest of the book is spent quoting other women who went through the same thing she did, talking about the different theories of whether a child molester really can be “cured” or not, and how to work through the whole thing if you’re a spouse of a child molester.

Very occasionally, she’d mention something that’d happened in her own life (this would last for a whole paragraph - maybe!) and then she was back to focusing on others.

I don’t think I would have minded this, if I had known that was what this book was going to be about.  Of course in that case, I wouldn’t have picked it up at all, because I’ve never dealt with child molestation on a personal level - I have no reason to learn how to deal with being married to a child molester, obviously.

While reading it, I didn’t know that was what the book was going to be like, and I kept waiting (in vain) for the author to focus on her own story again.  I read to the end (skimming in parts, I’ll admit) and it never happened.  It was a self-help book, focused on the spouses of child molesters.  Period.

If this is something that you are personally dealing with, then I’d highly recommend this book to you.  I think you’ll find it invaluable, because I don’t personally know of other books focused on this same subject - this is a pretty specialized subject.

Otherwise, I’d skip the book.  There’s not much to interest someone who isn’t dealing with this issue themselves.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Havs

Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out by Marci Shimoff is one of the better self-help books that I’ve read (although, I’ll confess, I really haven’t read that many). She’s down to earth, funny, and self-deprecating.  She even uses cartoons, which my husband thought was just about the coolest thing ever.  My only real complaint with the book was the fact that Marci is linked to The Secret, a book I made no bones about not liking in my review of The Secret Revealed.  And yes, there is some stuff in Happy for No Reason that is draws off the philosophy of The Secret, which I could have done without, but there was less in there than I had worried there would be.  I just tried to skim past and ignore it when it came up.

Almost from the beginning, I found myself nodding in agreement with her.  It was amazing how many bad habits I had, that I never really thought about.  I am definitely a “I’ll-Be-Happy-When” person - I’m always saying that!  “I’ll be happy when we get a new washer and dryer” or “I’ll be happy when school is out for the summer” or “I’ll be happy when we go on vacation.”  Yet when those things happened, I never was really happy.  I was excited for a day or two, sure, but then I went back to normal.  Normal, of course, being me thinking yet more of the “I’ll-Be-Happy-When” thoughts.  It was a never-ending cycle, but I couldn’t figure out why.  Marci explained it all amazingly well, and I’ve been trying, since I finished the book, to correct those thoughts when I have them.  It’s been hard - it’s a lifetime habit I’m trying to break.

And if you’re struggling with depression, then you’ll really enjoy this book, because unlike many of the books out there that tell you how to deal with your depression, this one is written by someone who has actually been there, done that.  Marci Shimoff was not born with her “happiness gauge” set on high - just the opposite, in fact.   She talks about always looking at the bad side of situations, and most people will find themselves relating to what she’s saying.  Speaking of depression, there is a blog here at Today.com that talks about dealing with depression - Life After Depression might be a good blog to check out if depression is something you or a loved one deals with.

If you’re on the market for a good self-help book (even if it has a smidge too much of The Secret in it) you definitely should pick up Happy for No Reason.  It just might change how you think.

4.25 out of 5 stars.

Havs

The Secret Revealed: Exposing the Truth About the Law of Attraction by James L. Garlow and Rick Marschall was a book that definitely didn’t impress me. I had originally heard about The Secret from a friend of mine who really believed it with every fiber of his soul.  I sat down and watched the movie with him to humor him, and although at the time I thought, “Wow, that looked really interesting - could that really be true?” afterwards I started to really think about it.

After discussing it with my sister, we eventually came to the conclusion that The Secret comes apart at the seams for the same reason that karma does: How do you account for when bad things happen to good people, when according to karma (and The Secret), everything that happened to you is your fault?  Can you honestly say that a little girl who was raped repeatedly, hacked to pieces, and then fed to the dogs was somehow responsible for that happening because she didn’t make her bed that morning?  Truly, how could any little girl, or any human being at all, be horrid enough to deserve a fate like that?

So I decided that karma, and The Secret, couldn’t be true.  I went on my merry way, until I saw this book.  I thought, “Wow, how cool!  A book that debunks The Secret!”  I knew that the whole “everything that’s happened to you in your whole life is because of your own thoughts and actions, so suck it up” was wrong, but what else was I missing? I was sure there were other glaring inconsistencies in the movie/book that I had overlooked.

As I started reading though, I realized quickly that the whole “expose” could be summed in one sentence: We are Christians; The Secret is New Age stuff; we don’t believe in New Age stuff; Christ is so much better and makes you so much happier.  Okay, so it’s a run-on sentence, but you get the picture. I had expected something in-depth, something helpful, but instead got several hundred pages of the above, just regurgitated in different forms.  They did touch on the whole karma idea, for roughly 2 paragraphs (I counted).  That was the only time it was brought up in the entire book.  The rest of the time, all of the arguments seemed to base on the fact that there was no way The Secret could be correct, because it was based on New Age philosophy, and that’s of the devil.

How could that be even remotely helpful?  I think it really didn’t help things that I didn’t know from the beginning that this was a “Christian” book.  After an hour of skimming through and becoming more disgusted by the moment, I flipped the book over and checked the labeling section, to see where the publisher suggested that the book be filed at in the bookstore.  It was then that I saw the Christianity label.  I had not realized that going in, and I think that if I had, perhaps my reference point and what I was expecting out of the book would have been different.

I was expecting an unbiased review of The Secret, much like the Debunking 9/11 Myths by Popular Mechanics was an unbiased review of what happened on that tragic day.  Debunking 9/11 Myths wasn’t written from a Christian point of view, with references and debates hinging upon that.  Instead, it referenced studies, reports, and interviews, and based what it said on facts.  None of that was to be found in The Secret Revealed.

I give this book 1.25 stars out of 5.  Don’t waste your time reading it - I summed up pretty much everything it said in the above four paragraphs anyway.

KickAss in College: A Guerrilla Guide to College Success by Gunnar Fox is a laugh-out-loud guide to doing well in college.  I picked it up on a whim at the library because the name caught my eye - there aren’t many self-help books that have swear words in the title. I’m glad I did though - it was an absolutely fantastic book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  My only real quibble with it was (would you guess it!) there were quite a few swear words on it. I know, I know, crazy but true. I have a hard time recommending it wholeheartedly because of those swear words, but I also figure that anyone who picks up a book with “Ass” in the title probably knows what’s coming.

The tips in the book are fantastic - he’s direct, he’s easy to read, he’s realistic, and he’s fun.  I read the book through quickly the first time, and then decided to go back through a second time to take notes.  There was enough in there that I knew I wouldn’t remember everything by fall (when I start back to school myself), and I didn’t want to risk that.  If I had read this book before starting college as a freshman in 1999, I would have done so much better than I did. I highly recommend it to anyone who attending either college or high school, and wants to learn how to succeed in the classroom.  He doesn’t have a crazy system for studying where you have to highlight every sentence with a different color, or one of the other bizarre systems that are out there. His system does require you to work hard, yes, but at least you’ll do it knowing that you’re going to actually get the good grades in the end.

If you’re in the market for a great study guide, make sure to pick this one up!

4.75 out of 5 stars (marked down just slightly for the cuss word content).

Havs

Financial Peace: Restoring Financial Hope to You and Your Family by Dave Ramsey is an average book for those who are just starting out on the road back to fiscal responsibility. If you have never read a book about how to manage your finances and want a very general overarching idea of where to start, this book is for you. If you’re a fan of Dave Ramsey and want to learn a bit more about his background and how he got started counseling people on their finances, this book is for you.

Unfortunately, I don’t fall under either of those categories, and so although the book was slightly entertaining to me (Dave can be quite funny at times), overall the book simply seemed repetitive. Every financial book seems to cover the same bases: Pay yourself first, put together a budget and stick to it, always spend less than you make, spend time looking for good bargains (never pay retail!) and put together an emergency fund in case of a rainy day. Dave is no different – he covers these same points just like every other book out there.

The book also suffers from being on the older side – it was originally written in 1992, and then reprinted in 1997, and it definitely shows. Last but not least, Dave Ramsey is Christian, so he spends a lot of his time quoting scriptures out of the Bible. I’m a Christian too, so this didn’t bother me too much (although I’ve never figured out how finances and Christianity related to each other), but I did think that was worthy of mention, because if that’s something that would bug you, you won’t want to pick this book up, or any book by Dave Ramsey since he does the same thing in his other books.

To be fair, there were parts that made me laugh. Case in point: Dave was trying to drive home the point that bad things will always happen to you, and so he gave the following “test” for the reader to perform:

“Put this book down now. Hold your right hand up in front of you with your elbow bent. Now reach your left hand across the back of your wrist to where your fingertips touch your main artery, and then check for a pulse. Is your heart beating? If you are alive and walking around, things will happen to you that you don’t think will. The only way you can avoid unexpected financial events is not to be alive – so they’re not ‘unexpected’ events, are they?”

He also said, “One of my friends said her grandmother taught her to have a G.O.K fund – God Only Knows.” That made me laugh out loud, which isn’t common for a nonfiction book on finances. I decided my emergency fund needed to be renamed to the GOK fund, because that sounds much cooler than a plain ole’ Emergency Fund.

But overall, a much better book to read Dave Ramsey’s other book, “Total Money Makeover.” That has more concrete information that is actually usable.

Overall, I give it 3.25 stars out of 5.

Havs