Book Review – Stop Giving It Away by Cherilynn Veland

Title:  Stop Giving It Away: How to Stop Self-Sacrificing and Start Claiming Your Space, Power, and Happiness
Author:  Cherilynn Veland
Publication Date:  May 17, 2015



Book Description
Being caring and compassionate is important―but too many women allow the weight of others’ needs to press so hard on them that they find they often fail to speak up for what they want and need. And women do this all the time. It’s time for these women to stop worrying quite so much about everyone else―and start taking care of themselves

Book Review:  5 out of 5 stars

Finally a self-help book that explains what the heck I’ve been struggling with for 6 years!!  I’ve been In therapy for 2 years, and I think it allowed me to think about what Ms. Veland says with a bit more understanding than I would have approached it six years ago.

I like that the tone of the book is like one that you would get in therapy.  She breaks down the ideas and explains them to you, even informally.  She doesn’t use a medical dictionary with hard to understand concepts, which I feel is something that has put me off self-help books in the past.

Even after going through therapy, things didn’t make complete sense to me, until I read this book.  I realized my childhood and events that happened six years ago pushed me to a breaking point.  I knew something had happened, but didn’t understand what. 

And for this alone, it’s worth the price of admission folks.  To finally get an idea of why you think and feel the way you do, and how to get around those thoughts, how to finally dig out from the hole you’ve pushed yourself into is amazing.

I’ve been so moved by this book, I’m taking the action items, and even little throw-away tips Ms. Veland gives you throughout the book and have started using them in my journaling and using them for further inflection during my daily workouts.

As a mother of two children with Special Needs, I know the stress we’re under, the sacrifices we make, the way we’re left feeling, and I truly believe that every ASD mom/dad should read this!

Book Review - Exhuming Mary McCarthy by Jessica Lamirand

Title:  Exhuming Mary McCarthy
Author:  Jessica Lamirand
Publication Date:  March 10, 2015

Book Description
With her white patent leather platform shoes and love of the Pixies, no one would guess that dreamy Jessica's manual for life is Anne of Green Gables. In this memoir of extraordinary honesty, Jessica journeys through college and the deep bonds of friendship that propel her out of her shell and into a new world. As a shy, sheltered teen, Jessica realizes, as soon as she enters Colorado College, that her fantasy world has not prepared her for the realities of life at this freewheeling academic oasis. Lost, she bonds with six girls in her dorm who dub themselves “The Group” after Mary McCarthy's bestselling 1963 novel. Jessica's Group vows to remain friends forever, avoiding the fate of their namesakes. But even as Jessica fights to save their friendship, time, addictions, and mental illness form cracks in the Group's foundation. And then Jessica, still stuck in her happily-ever-after fantasies, falls for the one guy the Group despises—handsome slacker Malcolm.
Set against a mid-1990s pop culture background, the friends experiment with the joys of uninhibited choices and deal with the accompanying pitfalls of sexual pressures, self-image issues, and substance abuse. Exhuming Mary McCarthy is a telling, insightful saga of college life beyond the classroom that will mesmerize readers with bittersweet humor as they journey with Jessica on the path towards adulthood.

Book Review:  1 out of 5 stars
There are a few books where I have to force myself to finish.  There have been a few that I simply could not, one being Alison Weir, I love her books to pieces, but they're so educational that they put me to sleep....literally.

This book reads more like a diary of Jessica's time in college.  If you don't like reading the mundane day-to-day goings on of a naive girl, this isn't the book for you.

I enjoyed getting to know the other member of "The Group," and hearing their stories as well.  But at 507 pages, this story dragged on.  About halfway through, I was growing severely tired of Jessica and her adolescent stupidity.  Granted, I read this as a 40 year old, who went to college in the 90s (the settings of the novel), and know that everything is not the life or death that it seems.

I probably would have enjoyed it better, if I read the novel when I was in college and was living the issues that were covered in the book.  If you're my age, don't waste your time.