Tag: nonfiction book review

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Down the Drain by Julia Fox ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Memoir

I read Down the Drain for a book club having no idea who Julia Fox is and, to be honest, I still don’t really know who she is. This memoir follows Julia’s life from the time she’s very young to present day. It paints a picture of a child who was denied love from her parents and forced to fend for herself from a young age.

Her time in NYC featured lots of drugs, a sugar daddy, and her escapades as a dominatrix. From there, we follow Julia to New Orleans and are chaotically introduced to friends who seem to come out of nowhere. It was a little hard to keep up with the pacing.

This is an overview of Julia’s life without any reflection. She tells her story exactly as it happens. It was fascinating to read about a journey so different from mine and to see how she was able to fight for herself and become famous (for what exactly, I’m still not sure). It was hard to see her make the same mistakes over and over without commenting on that at all, but I guess that’s either not the kind of book she wanted to write, or that self-awareness doesn’t exist. I think she woke up one day and said “I’m going to write a memoir” and that was all the forethought that went into it.

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Buy Down the Drain at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Nonfiction, Self Help

The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Self help

This book was definitely not what I was expecting, but I also flew through it much faster than anticipated. It made me question my own definition of confidence and what actually makes someone confident. It starts by exploring confidence as a concept and then introduces activities to help achieve a more confident mindset.

The main themes throughout this book are creating a better relationship with fear and anxiety, clarifying and living in your values, learning how to handle negative thoughts and emotions, and implementing ‘confident’ actions, regardless of how you’re actually feeling. 

I found the exercises, particularly around negative thinking and fear, to be very helpful and easy to put into practice. I had never really considered the relationships between negative thoughts, fear, and confidence, but throughout the book it came to make a lot of sense to me that knowing how to effectively handle these negative emotions leaves space for feeling more confidence.

The concepts and exercises used in this book were really interesting and helpful, but also REALLY repetitive. By the end I was skimming because it felt like I was reading the same chapters over and over again. I would absolutely recommend this book, but it could have been about ⅔ as long and still covered all the content it needed to.

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Buy The Confidence Gap at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Nonfiction, Self Help

The Defining Decade by Meg Jay ~ Book Review

Morgan

Nonfiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

What I appreciated most about this book was its reminder that every day counts toward your future and even if you don’t have a ‘plan’ for your life, it can’t hurt to make a move, take a step, and see where it takes you. Jay talks about how your twenties can hugely impact your future in terms of earning potential, career success, and romantic life. However, I think it’s important to take this with a grain of salt. It’s not impossible to grow in these areas and change your life for the better once your twenties are over.

Most of the case studies of Jay’s clients completely glossed over the difficult realities that many people face when they feel stuck in their twenties. She frames them like people who are working jobs that aren’t going anywhere simply haven’t tried to find anything else, which is demoralizing for anyone who has struggled submitting hundreds of job applications that go nowhere.

This book is a good reminder to be intentional with the way you are setting yourself up for your future while you’re in your twenties, which for some people, is enough of a reminder to kickstart them into action. However, it’s limited to a certain type of privileged audience and paints too urgent of a picture, in my opinion, for everything someone needs to have accomplished before thirty in order to have a great life.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy The Defining Decade at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Nonfiction

All About Love by bell hooks ~ Book Review

Morgan

Nonfiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪

What I appreciated most about this book was the discussion of romantic love and how society emphasizes it as being the most important kind of love. hooks discusses the importance of love between friends and family, which is often more enduring than romantic love. It was refreshing to reframe this and make myself more cognizant of how society has shaped my views.

What I appreciated least about this book was the focus on spirituality. For me, that approach does not resonate and it felt like it was being forced on me in order to try to understand hooks’s perspective. While someone with more religion or spirituality in their life might find this effective, it caused me to skim over much of the book to try to pick out pieces that felt more relevant to my life.

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Buy All About Love at an indie bookstore near you
All About You on Goodreads

Book Review, Nonfiction, Self Help

The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane~ Book Review

Morgan

Personal Development
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

The central tenet of The Charisma Myth is that charisma is not something innate to certain people, but rather, it is something that can be taught. Through a series of stories, Cabane illustrates issues that people in her life have faced and practices they have used to exude more charisma in future similar situations.

The book is interspersed with exercises to try that illustrate the concepts being explained. Although some of them seem obvious, like giving someone your full undivided attention during a conversation, I’d never really made the connection between those actions and someone’s perceived charisma.

A number of the practices discussed gave me more confidence in myself because I recognized them as things I already do in my day to day interactions. As I’ve implemented more of them, I feel at least an internal shift knowing that I am approaching situations more intentionally.

Some of the suggestions did not feel like they would be applicable/helpful to someone who struggles with public speaking or social anxiety. If those situations are deeply difficult, I’m not convinced that these are the right fixes. When Cabane started explaining how too much charisma can basically make people obsessed with you (paraphrasing) it felt like she was tooting her own horn a bit too much – I have trouble believing people walk away from this book with THAT MUCH more charisma. Overall though, I did come away with some useful new tools for social situations.

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The Charisma Myth on Goodreads
Buy The Charisma Myth at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Memoir
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Beyond the Wand was a wonderfully insightful and humorous insight into the world of Tom Felton. As a huge Harry Potter fan, I loved getting the inside scoop on the actors real personalities and on-set interactions. Learning about the way the kids were mentored, formed cliques, and grew up together was so fun to hear about and made me want to watch the films again ASAP.

We also got to learn about Tom beyond Harry Potter (hence the title). He details his difficulties getting jobs once the series ended, his struggles with addiction, and his friendship with Emma Watson (sigh). Tom’s wit and humor are infused throughout the book, but there is also a frank honesty with which he recalls his past. He doesn’t shy away from sharing the hard parts.

The audiobook is narrated by Tom himself, which was especially fun to listen to. That being said, the physical book includes several pages of photos that bring his stories to life, as well as a foreword by Emma Watson that can’t be missed. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I highly recommend this one to learn about what makes Tom Felton more than just Draco Malfoy.

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Buy Beyond the Wand at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Nonfiction

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy ~ Book Review

Morgan

Simon & Schuster
Memoir
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

This book was so hard to read, but I could not stop. Jennette is an incredibly talented writer and the way she details her childhood makes it feel like everything is happening to her in the present. She unflinchingly details the abuse she underwent from her mother, and how at the time, she fully believed her mother was acting in Jennette’s own best interest. This included forcing Jennette to become a child actress, teaching her disordered eating, and showering her until she was a teenager.

The way that Jennette paints her own childhood views of her mom were so heartbreaking. She would do everything in her power to please her mom with no concept of anything being wrong with their relationship.

Although this memoir is told through the lens of someone who was a successful child actor, it is really a personal and reflective narrative of Jennette’s specific struggles. It is not a tell-all about the industry, but it does show how Jennette’s life was so heavily and negatively impacted by being part of the industry.

Jennette’s struggles with eating disorders and addiction were especially impactful. Although she invokes dry humor into her stories wonderfully, the pain of the experiences she shares will stick with me for a long time.

At the end of the memoir, Jennette talks about finally getting help through therapy. I do wish there had been a little more about how she’s doing now, to help provide some hope for those struggling with anything she discussed and to show how she has (hopefully!) grown and healed.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy I’m Glad My Mom Died at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Nonfiction

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates ~ Book Review

Morgan

One World
Nonfiction: Essays
Release Date: October 3, 2017

We Were Eight Years in Power is a collection of essays first published in The Atlantic, along with original introductions to each one. The book speaks broadly about the presidency of Barack Obama, and how Coates’s views and expectations of him changed over the course of his eight years as the president. It also speaks powerfully about pervasive racism in America and different programs and policies that kept and keep it in place.

Coates’s insights and research painted a stark and powerful image of the country and tied America’s history to both Barack Obama’s ascendance to the White House, and Donald Trump’s.

I found the essays incredibly compelling and thought provoking, although their introductions were a bit less so for me. His views of America, and the research and data he used to backup his perspectives, were valuable and continue to resonate with me.

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Buy We Were Eight Years in Power at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Nonfiction

Cultish by Amanda Montell ~ Book Review

Morgan

Harper Wave
Nonfiction
Release Date: June 15, 2021
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I’d seen Cultish all over the place before picking it up and had a general sense that it was about cults of all kinds, including brands that were on the verge of being cult-like. The real focus of the book is the language used in cults, referred to by the author as ‘Cultish.’ Montell highlights the ways that cult leaders speak to and teach those around them in order to encourage them to internalize ways of thinking and believe certain things about themselves.

The chapters range from covering intense cults with mass suicides, to multi-level marketing schemes, to organizations like Soul Cycle, and draws parallels between the ways that leaders of these different groups speak to members.

I liked hearing about the ways that people were sucked into these groups, and especially the insight from past members and the ways that they thought about their time in cults. I think I just wanted a little bit more about how cults get into people’s heads and why certain people are more susceptible to them than others. The organization also felt a little jarring to me. I feel like adding in more examples would have made the transitions less jumpy.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Cultish at an indie bookstore near you
Cultish on Goodreads

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey ~ Book Review

Morgan

Crown Publishing Group
Memoir
Release Date: October 20, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

What a joy Greenlights was to listen to. Narrated by Matthew McConaughey himself, the audiobook version of this memoir was infused with expressive inflection and made his reminiscing and musing really come to life.

I didn’t have any insight into McConaughey’s life before reading this, and it was a wild ride. I truly never knew what was going to come next in this narrative, so much so, that at times it felt like I was listening to a work of fiction.

I love how unapologetic McConaughey is in his honesty and willingness to expose his experiences to the masses. From getting arrested while playing the bongos naked to only eating ketchup with lettuce in an attempt to be a vegetarian, the range of this memoir was extensive and never boring.

Central to all his stories is the idea of catching ‘Greenlights’ — moments that catapult you forward in life’s successes. This was a fun and interesting thread that tied the memoir together and painted a comprehensive picture of what has gotten Matthew McConaughey to where he is today.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Greenlights at an indie bookstore near you
Greenlights on Goodreads