Promise Land by Jessica Lamb-Shapiro

It’s January, the month for making resolutions to improve yourself. What do you think when you hear the term “self-help”? Do you want it? Do you fear it? Do you look down on those who need it? “All of us would probably like to be slimmer, smarter, richer, more popular, more successful,” notes Jessica Lamb-Shapiro in her book Promise Land (p. 207), in which she examines the self-help industry. Her father, Lawrence E. Shapiro, has written self-help books and raised her in an environment of positive thinking.

While working on the book, the author attended conferences, camps, and classes. She walked on coals and forced herself to fly despite her own fear.

Promise Land is humorous and a bit snarky, especially if you are at all skeptical of the self-help industry. If you are a particular fan of some of the books and franchises she mentions, like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and the Chicken Soup series, you may not be quite as amused.  For example, she writes, “[t]he concepts in The Secret have been published in books that anyone can buy – and have bought, in the millions – for at least a hundred years. Furthermore, something you don’t know is not necessarily a secret; it’s just something you don’t know. For instance, I don’t know anything about rocket science, but that doesn’t make rocket science a secret.” (p. 123)

The author was considerably less snarky when discussing her own fear of flying and the self-help group she attended. I laughed along with her at some of the situations she covered, but others struck home with me. During an especially difficult time of his life, her father bought a diorama of a hospital room and spent time setting it up and playing with it at home. “I felt better,” he said. “It was a moment of epiphany. That was when I realized that toys could help people.” (p. 69) As a doll collector, I also believe that toys can help people.

The book did bring to my attention information I didn’t know or that hadn’t occurred to me. For example, the author quotes self-help author Martin Seligman, who points out that it is unusual “for people to have electric-outlet phobias or hammer phobias or chain saw phobias, even though those things pose actual dangers.” (p. 146) We are not most afraid of the things that are the most dangerous.

At times the author struck me as a bit lazy. She describes how The Sorcerer’s Apprentice section of the movie Fantasia made her anxious (p. 63). She remembers Mickey cutting a magic chair in half and the chair then multiplying.  In a footnote, she comments that her editor “thinks” it was a broom, not a chair, but neither the author nor the editor bothered to google it and find out? Maybe that’s laziness and maybe it’s self-indulgence, but I didn’t like it.

There is a thread of anxious melancholy running throughout the book. The author’s mother committed suicide when she was a child, at about the same age the author was when writing the book, and although the author has a close relationship with her father, they do not talk about her mother.  Her search for self-help brings her some closure.

Promise Land is a short book – just over 200 pages – and an easy read. If self-reflection and the subject of self-help interests you, I recommend it. It can be found at the Galesburg Public Library at 616.89 LAM.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Did you love The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay? Then you will probably want to read Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places, which tackles another trendy topic – teen suicide. My junior year in high school, the president of student council killed himself at Valentine’s Day, so as a reader I am both attracted to and repelled by teen suicide books.

The book started slowly for me, as it seemed overly similar to other realistic fiction YA books like those I mentioned.  Freaky, weird, unpopular boy and pretty, popular girl with an issue. I had a bit of a hard time buying the initial “meet cute” (or not so cute) set up. He goes up on the school’s bell tower to think about dying, something he thinks about a lot. She doesn’t know why she goes up, she just finds herself there, numb from the death of her older sister in a car crash months before. He talks her down, but everyone in their high school of 2000 students thinks it’s the other way around. That she courageously and heroically saw him up there and persuaded him not to kill himself.

So Theodore Finch and Violet Markey slowly become friends, then boyfriend and girlfriend. Their U.S. Geography teacher asks them to work in pairs on a project, reporting on two or three “wonders of Indiana.” Finch manipulates Violet into agreeing to be his partner on the project, and much of their relationship is spent visiting strange and quirky curiosities in Indiana.

The giddiness of attraction between teenagers is well done, as is the aftermath of a tragedy that takes place late in the book. Some of the metaphors are labored – like the story of a cardinal who kept flying into the glass doors of Finch’s home until it killed him – but there is some nice imagery. The depiction of the parents and the other students is uneven. For example, Finch’s father is a caricature, but Violet’s mother has some depth.

The book is narrated in turn by Finch and Violet.  I found Finch much better developed than Violet, and liked his voice much better. Still, they are both flawed but appealing. The dialog between Finch and Violet is very smart and literate, but not over the top for the most part. Their internal narratives ring true most of the time.

“Like most people in the Midwest, Embryo doesn’t believe in humor, especially when it pertains to sensitive subjects,” thinks Finch (p. 19 of the advance reader copy), which isn’t true but is something a teenager might believe.

There is much in this book that teenagers will relate to. “One year later, I grew out of my clothes because, it turns out, growing fourteen inches in a summer is easy. It’s growing out of a label that’s hard, ” thinks Finch after being stuck with the label Theodore Freak. (p. 108)

“I reach for Violet because I’m not too steady on my feet and it’s a long way down if I fall. She wraps her arm around me like it’s second nature, and I lean into her and she leans into me until we make up one leaning person.” (p. 148) Who doesn’t wish for a relationship like that?

I predict this book will be very popular. I recommend it for lovers of realistic contemporary fiction that deals with issues and for readers who enjoy fiction set in Indiana. I read an advance reader copy provided by netgalley.com. The book will be available in the young adult fiction section of the Galesburg Public Library soon.