A Spoiler Free Bit About The Book
The Power is from the author of the crazily successful The Secret and is all about love and positive thinking.
My Review
Now this is a little strange for me because not only is this book not YA, it's also not fiction at all. I'm not sure if this is why it took me so long to read or because I was swimming in the deep sea of NaNoWriMo.
The Power is unlike anything I've ever read. I've never read a self-help book before (can I even call it that?) but this one made me think that maybe I'd like to read another. It was so full of great positive lines that I would feel fantastic after picking it up and reading a little section. It made me buzz with smiles and try and put the teachings into action . . . but that's easier said than done. The longer I went from picking it up, the harder I found the message to digest. It seems a lot more difficult to action in the real world. Byrne is teaching that you can just ignore emotions like sadness and anger but in reality, this is a mammoth task. I don't know whether this can be counted as a flaw of the book but the further removed I become from it, the more I found I couldn't do what Byrne suggests.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on non-fiction books but I will say this: The Power was incredibly repetitive. Love is the strongest force. Love don't hate. Turn away from hate and negative emotions. If you believe you receive. They are all the basic messages. The Power seemed to me to be these phrases repeated and re-worded and over-explained over and over again. Don't get me wrong, the message was beautiful, but she seemed to run out of material insanely quickly. Although it is a phenomenal performance of writing so much and saying so little.
Though don't get the wrong impression, I did enjoy it, it just started to exhaust me after a while and I was glad when it was over. I'm grateful for the messages Byrne teaches in The Power, but I felt like I needed a lie down afterwards.
Evaluation
Overall 6/10
Would I recommend it? Yes. If you need a little pick-me-up, this book is for you!
Would I look up the author? No. I think sticking to my YA fiction is the best bet.
The Power was a beautiful read though rather too repetitive for me.
*Author Note: I have for so long been proud of saying I've reviewed every book I've read for the past two and a half years but now that I own my own business and am reading non-fiction also it just doesn't make sense. The Power will be my last non-fiction review. I will however continue to review all fiction that I read. The non-fiction will still be added to my 'Books Read' list and given a star rating on Goodreads but there will be no review. If you want to know what I thought of one of these non-fiction books please feel free to ask! Thanks and love to everyone reading my blog!*
*Author Note: I have for so long been proud of saying I've reviewed every book I've read for the past two and a half years but now that I own my own business and am reading non-fiction also it just doesn't make sense. The Power will be my last non-fiction review. I will however continue to review all fiction that I read. The non-fiction will still be added to my 'Books Read' list and given a star rating on Goodreads but there will be no review. If you want to know what I thought of one of these non-fiction books please feel free to ask! Thanks and love to everyone reading my blog!*
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