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Opinion
Mark Wayne Smith asked me for an honest review of this nonfiction advice book. I was happy to say yes, and in the time he has waited, he has been very kind and patient. I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited. Since the book is nonfiction advice, I will have my take on if this works for me or does not.
Full disclosure here, this book I do not believe was written with me in mind. I have never had any addictions to anything, not chemical, not physical and not emotional. I will admit on occasion I do like coffee, but I think for the amount I drink I'm an average consumer at best. I also have a grounded belief system that I have found solid footing under, and I have never experienced any situation where I was losing control of myself mentally or emotionally aside from pregnancy and giving birth. That said, I have experienced several major life events, and I'm pretty good at handling both the positive and the negative. I am by no means at all perfect, nor am I wealthy or wise, I am someone who has a pretty good handle of what I can and cannot accomplish and recognize it.
So with that said, this book still had stuff I was able to take ideas on how to improve myself. However, this, I believe, is written for someone who is not in my shoes at all.
The weekend I read this book, I decided to apply the lessons to how I was feeling about some things that are going on. I am happy to say that a lot of the advice helped me, explicitly recognizing what is and what is not in my control.
With that said, this isn't a clinical book. This isn't written by a doctor with science and studies and footnotes of things either. There isn't a large table of contents filled with just the portions of science that is behind the reasoning either. That's why this is an advice review; it's all excellent and well-intended advice, not a scientific periodical that was weighed and reviewed by peers of the theorist. So please consider that when you read the information and make a judgment on if you wish to give it weight based on the credentials or not. I felt this was an emotional plead for common sense rather than logic based clinical sort of review.
Now, with that in mind, let's talk about this book, and we will move into the critique section. For my first critique, I'm going to be covering the "Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation" portion of my scoring system. Specifically, in this critique, we are looking at the foundation elements that make the book up. The book starts with a "Prologue" which is I believe the only fictionalized portion of the book. I'm not sure if a prologue was needed her, or if it should be called a prologue at all. Typically for nonfiction, there isn't much of a reason to write some scene that comes out of the time sequence to better explain events that will not show up in exposition. It's a nonfiction book but starts with a fictionalized piece of writing that is not part of the narrative.
Next, under the same category, we look at "Story Structure," and we will be looking at the grammatical errors specifically. There are several examples of punctuation use that is outside of the normal. One of the main ones I found was ellipsis misuse, but there also is some strange comma usage that is a bit more than the traditional theme of "To Oxford or not to Oxford, that is the question." It's not distracting per se, but it is frustrating to see the inconsistencies.
Now let's go into what I enjoyed about "Simplify Your Life from the INSIDE OUT The 7 Keys to Finding Inner Peace," and we will start in the "Whole Story" category. This is a complete advise book; it has structure and tells an overarching theme which is completed. In the end, there is a Q & A you can use in a quiz earlier, and I found that helpful. It's nice when you know if you got the answers correct!
Next, in the "Lost in Translation" section, aside from the critiques above about Googling if something was or wasn't accurate with punctuation, I didn't have to look up the actual advice in the book. I understood what I was reading, and there was much work done to make sure that it was easy to understand. This also is feeding into the "Story Structure" category as well, because it was structured brilliantly and made sense.
Next, from the "Cliche Much" portion, this book is not a cliche' sort of advice book. Oh, we have all seen those books, they read like sales pitches. This isn't like that. Thankfully what you read is a very personal and intimate reason for why the book was written with a real conviction behind the words that are given. Mark is a very spiritual person with a journey he has gone on, and he invites the reader to understand what and why he's writing what he is. It is sincere and heartfelt in the approach.
Lastly, does the advice work? This portion is entirely non-scoring because my ability to take the advice or not is of myself and not of others. This is nonfiction, so I always check to see if the advice is sound and if it works for me or not. That way I can tell you all. I started this review on May 19th, which was a Sunday. I gave it until May 26th, the following Sunday to try out the principals.
As I used the tactics, I found I had a positive mental attitude, but alas, this happened while I’ve been under the weather. I am reasonably sure it works, I know I feel more positive about what I am doing. However, in the future, I am going to use it more, and hopefully, this will help me a great deal with how I tackle things.
Score
Overall, with all of the scoring and the advice and such involved, this has earned an 85/100 which is a four-star review on Goodreads and Amazon.
