Tag Archives: self-help

Review of Jolene Stockman’s Total Blueprint for World Domination

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Total BlueprintSo, this morning I asked my husband to choose a number, any number between 1-43. He looked at me a little funny, but humoured me and eventually chose 37. Now, he may not have realised it, but he had just decided my next read. I honestly couldn’t be arse to choose anything myself. It’s one of those days.  Book number 37 happened to be Total Blueprint for World Domination, by Jolene Stockman. I was sent this book by the author for the purpose of an honest review.

Description from Goodreads:
Target big dreams and build a plan to achieve them! You’ve got one life, one shot, and all the power to make it happen. Get ready to dream big and live big. It’s all up to you. And it starts now. 

Total Blueprint for World Domination (17,000 words) is a powerful life-planning book for teens that will inspire. The book lets readers: 
*Explore hidden passions and find direction. 
*Create heart-pounding, toe-tingling goals. 
*Recruit an army for support. 
*Design a dream world and make it happen. 
*Achieve world domination step-by-step. 

Full of tips and tricks for tackling life’s challenges, Total Blueprint for World Domination is a book that will motivate readers to take their life to the next level. 

Anything is possible. And anything is possible for you. Believe it. Total Blueprint for World Domination takes you from this very second to your greatest dreams. So, are you ready?

This is WAY outside of my normal reading material, both because I don’t read a lot of self-help books and because I’m no longer a teenager. But I give all of the books sent to me consideration, so as the eminent book number 37 I chose to give it a go.

Review:
Total Blueprint for World Domination would make a great high school graduation present for a teenager…or maybe they need it at the beginning of their senior year to give them time to implement its advice. Either way, I can see it being very relevant in their lives. There has been some debate in psychological circles saying that modern Western society tells youths to go out and find their place in the world but doesn’t give them any instruction on how to identify it. Honestly, how helpful is telling 17-year-olds that they can be anything they want to be if they don’t know how to find what it is they want to be? It leaves them angsty and feeling anchor-less. Far smarter people than me have addressed this. They call it an identity crisis. Look up Erik Erikson if you’re interested. My point is that this book gives them a step-by-step blueprint of how to look into themselves and find what it is the world is telling them they should find. Contrary to the myth, it isn’t necessarily innate.

The book is written in an upbeat tone with a lot of modern media references. As a 35-year-old woman, I thought it sounded incredibly narcissistic and ‘kumbaya’, but I remember being a teenager and just how self-absorbed I was. It fits its audience. I can’t imagine any teenager having the forethought to pick this book up though. If they do, they probably don’t need it to start with. But all of you parents out there take heed. Many teenagers need advice like this.

Book Review of 12 Precious Anecdotes from Life

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Author Payal Roy sent me an e-copy of the book 12 Precious Anecdotes from Life.

Description from Goodreads:
12 short stories that initiate the ball of fate rolling on the court of life. Meet Samantha, John, Amy, uncle Ben and an octogenarian amongst a dozen other faces who share their anecdotes through this book.

What do they have in common? Successful and interesting people from a diverse background, their paths cross with Anita Maher. This sets off a cascade of events that compels everyone to look back at their own lives. How is Anita affected? Other people too seem to bump into Anita all of a sudden . Does life want to convey a message to all?

12 heartfelt anecdotes from their lives kept a secret all this while, only to be revealed to Anita, when time seems limited and many ventures still left unexplored. Does life give a second chance? Find out in this book which shares their exploits and adventures through their intriguing and engaging vignettes on life.

I honestly feel like I should write two reviews for this book, one a critical analysis of the book itself and the second a personal examination of my own response to it. The two are quite different. Just as the title suggests, it is a collection of short stories, each containing an important lesson to help the reader lead a more fulfilled and meaningful life. Who can argue with the idea that it is important to value your friends and family above money or to stop and appreciate small moments of bliss? I have no qualms with what the book set out to do and, honestly, even accomplishes. I didn’t even have any real qualms with the writing, though it was painfully straightforward and repetitive at times. What it was that made my skin crawl was simply that I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate being preached at and that is exactly what each one of these stories felt like to me. Something like having my mother trying to tell me, a 35-year-old woman, how best to live my life. While acknowledging the message, I’m inclined to reject the messenger based on the emotional aversion it engenders, and it’s hard to rationalize myself past that.

This makes reviewing the book a little difficult. Should I treat it as a simple representation of my own personal opinion of the book or as a more impartial indication of the book’s worth to readers as a whole? Because, certainly, if you are the type of reader who enjoys sitting in Sunday School pondering the moral lessons implicit in the Book of Paul (or any other religious text) you would really like this book. I am not that person. I didn’t enjoy it, but I’m not ready to say it isn’t a good book.

I know it sounds like I am straddling the fence on this one, but I am rather trying to impart two messages in one review. I didn’t like it, but please don’t take that as a general denunciation of the book. It and I were simply a poor match.