‘The Happiness Project’ Reviewed: Charming and Helpful

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

Cover via Amazon

Gretchen Rubin has the enviable ability to make her readers want to know her personally. This has been demonstrated both through her blog and her book, The Happiness Project.
I’ve been wanting to read this book since I heard of it a couple of months ago, and once I picked it up and started reading, I was very glad I had.

daisies by countryboy1949 at flickr

The Happiness Project reads almost more as a memoir than a self-help book, which I think is part of its charm. It gives you an intimate portrait of Rubin’s attempts to find deeper and broader happiness within the context of her life, and her ongoing and daily struggles with integrating what she was learning.

Rubin tells a story early in the book about getting a terrible review from a reviewer and, even though she (privately) took it very personally, she composed herself and wrote a calm email in response, thanking him for his feedback. She talks both about how difficult it was to take that step and how wonderful it felt when she did it (and doubly wonderful when she got a gracious response).

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