Reviews for Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone

The average rating for Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-06-29 00:00:00 Damien Banks I was a big fan of Beth Lisick's first memoir, Everybody Into the Pool. She's smart and funny, so I figured her new book about a year she spent trying to improve her life through doing various self-help programs would be pretty entertaining. And it is entertaining, in parts. It was also kind of painful for me to read. Lisick describes herself as someone who would sooner be found making fun of self-help than plunking down hard-earned cash for a self-help book or workshop, so her first transformational task was to suspend her knee-jerk snarkiness in order to give the various programs she explores a fair shot. She's more successful than some at this task, and genuinely tries to find the pearls of wisdom in the works of self-help pioneers ranging from Stephen Covey to John Gray to Deepak Chopra. But she also has no problem poking fun at them along the way as she does things like use Jack Canfield's advice to ask for what you want to ask Jack Canfield for free coaching, a request which Canfield's office respectfully declines. As Lisick continues her tour by forking over the big bucks to attend various seminars and programs, however, I found myself having painful flashbacks to my own days as a self-help addict. Lisick conveys all too well the feelings of self-doubt that can creep up when you spend a weekend in a hotel conference room with well-dressed go-getters whose lives suddenly look a lot more together than your own (especially since, in her case, a chunk of her meager income is derived from freelance work involving a giant banana costume). Though self-help is supposed to make one's life better, it very often does so by making people feel worse about themselves so they are motivated to buy the next book, tape, seminar or e-coaching program they need to take things "to the next level." There is no question that Lisick did find a few genuine benefits to her explorations here and there'she followed Suze Orman's advice to lower credit card rates and developed a surprising appreciation for Richard Simmons on a week-long exercise cruise'but I finished the book feeling kind of like there wasn't really a there there. The concept suffered from similar problems to Jennifer Niesslein's memoir on the same topic'Lisick undertook this project as a tourist, not a self-help true believer, so she often wasn't engaged enough in what she was doing to fully engage me as well. In addition, it's just not that easy to make writing about reading self-help books interesting no matter how funny you may happen to be Ultimately, though, I think the real problem comes down to the fact that Lisick's book feels slight because self-help itself is lacking in genuine substance. Sure, it may make you feel inspired for a few days after the workshop, but sooner or later we all just have to get back to living our lives as best as we know how. Fortunately, it seems like that's a fact Beth Lisick understands pretty well by the end of the book.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-06-22 00:00:00 Carlo Alonso Okay. So. Firstly, if you read these book reviews I write, you know that Ithink I'm hilarious and interesting and want to talk about it all the time, right? And just have a theoretical reason ("my review") to do it? Well, Beth Lisick does that too! This book is ostensibly about her attempts to fix her life with self-help gurus, but really it's about how much of a mess she is and how funny she thinks that is. Which rules. Full disclosure: I have a crush on her. She came in with her son and signed some copies of this book at our store soon after it came out and I was like, oh! Well hello! Except that really I just didn't say anything to her. The specifics aren't really that important, except here are some weird coincidences: she writes about being grindingly, terrifyingly broke but still living like she's in the middle class; a trans woman; and Chuck Palahniuk, all of which have been things I've been interested in lately. AS WELL AS WRITING ABOUT COINCIDENCES. So... yeah. It would've been a four-star book, but it gets a bonus star for never really making fun of anybody. Like when she goes on the Richard Simmons cruise, she starts off by telling her friends to shut up about the fat white middle american idiot stereotype that comes with a Richard Simmons cruise, and THEN has nothing but nice things to say about him. Also Sylvia Browne and even Deepak Chopra. How great is that? This could've been 250 pages of cheap shots but instead it went someplace less obvious. I love that.