Rachel

CBT for climbers, low reading quality

Revisado: 04-01-24

I’m a mental health professional by trade and a climber for fun. I was hoping this book would help me marry the two. I really enjoyed the first 2 chapters or so and really liked how it brought in beliefs and how they are the key to mental training.

I think this book could be improved by spending some of the later chapters reviewing things like the automatic negative beliefs of CBT and how that could apply to climbing. Instead, I feel like they just continue to review the same mental scripts and how to reframe those which felt repetitive after about the fourth time by chapter 7/8.

I also wish the recording / reading quality were better. Expect the readers to fumble over words, read sentences in blocky and incomplete ways with awkward pauses, and a front row seat to swallowing and breathing sounds throughout the recording. LOL

Perhaps if you’re unfamiliar with basic psychology concepts this book would be really helpful! I’d recommend just looking up the automatic negative filters / cognitive distortions of CBT and asking yourself how these apply to your climbing and you’ll likely get the same if not better material than this book. Although the first 2 chapters in the book might be worth the credits as they talk about how the brain functions and the neurobiology of scripts which is informative!

Good luck at the crag!

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A well written and well performed smorgasbord

Revisado: 11-28-23

I find myself firmly on the fence with this audiobook. Lukewarm and mixed emotions after finishing it. Here are the pros I takeaway

Cons: the story is at times ordinary and at other times fantastical. At other times philosophical. At other times unfocused. At other times bogged down in detail. At other times inconsistent. It was difficult for me as the listener to track the thematic development through the different parts and it left a little to be desired in the form of character development. Although, i did find it interesting and compelling in a way that the side characters were more developed and likeable than the main character. That felt intentional to me especially with the philosophical questions explored in the last third.

This book was like a third autobiography / documentary, a third fantastical foreign adventure, a quarter existential / religious philosophy, and a pinch of romance. I personally found the romance element to be a bit bizarre in relation to the other parts of the book.

Pros: this book was extremely well performed and the reading is dynamic, interesting, and well delivered. I would listen to this reader again for sure! It is also clear that this book is well written with no lack of vocabulary. It also generally has good character interactions and dialogue. There is a lot of material so even if you don’t like all the parts there are likely other parts you’ll really like!

Overall, this is an audiobook Im glad I finished but not sure I enjoyed if that makes sense.

Good luck with your own journey listening! Hope you like it!

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Lackluster story with a good message

Revisado: 05-18-23

I really love children’s books and wanted to love this one as well. I’m a licensed professional counselor by trade so I read a lot of different stories with different messages to help kids (and adults!) label and process emotions. While I love the message behind this story, I felt there were details missing that would have truly brought the story home. For example, Leif is nervous about falling due to the upcoming winter, but the story doesn’t actually use very many feeling words (scared, sad, anxious) to help describe what he is experiencing and why. It also doesn’t describe what he felt at the end when the resolve happens. The book does a good job of saying what actions he takes and some of what he thinks, but I wouldn’t liked the emotions to have been fleshed out more. Also, his relationship with another leaf, Laurel, just kind of appears out of nowhere and there aren’t many context clues to help the listener know what to do with this character. It’s not clear to what degree they are friends, or more, and it’s not clear what brought them together or what if any is their shared purpose. While Laurel ultimately benefits from Leif’s ventures,it does beg the question if she was so supportive and interested in his ideas why didn’t she get a bigger role in adding her own voice and ideas and fears and hopes in the journey? Is it a small nod to the patriarchy where female characters are only good for being caring and supportive but not given roles that show their ambition and intelligence? That’s me overthinking it… but it just seems like the small changes of adding emotional depth to the characters by using more feeling words and motivations, and balancing out the character development through context clues and giving the female character more of a voice could’ve elevated this story into something a bit more enjoyable and complete. In its current form it feels a little loose and ends without much closure. I’d say listen to The Rabbit Listens, or any of Peter Reynolds stuff instead.

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“I swear your cheeks had remnants of baby fat.”

Revisado: 02-15-23

This book reminds me of Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. That is not a compliment.

I’m only 12 chapters in, so I’ll come back and update my review when (if) I finish. I will say, many people complain that this is a depressing story and that *that* makes it a bad book. I disagree. It isn’t the brutal content of the book that makes it a poor read, it’s the purple prose. The title of this review comes from a real line in the book where Blythe is trying to express her sincere and almost ethereal affection for her husband as she meets him on the aisle at their wedding… and her way of describing that is “I swear your cheeks had remnants of baby fat.” It’s just trying too hard to express that combination of feeling adult yet childlike when you’re hit full on with with love in the flash of a special moment like that.

The author has countless examples of that kind of unnecessary and frankly bizarre verbiage in the first 12 chapters alone.

Aside from the prose issues, there seems to be some elements thy don’t line up at times… at one point Blythe is describing a book being thrown at her, grazing her cheek, and then landing “in between us.” What??? So, did the book fly past, grazing her cheek, and then somehow ricochet off another wall so hard it flew backward to land in between her and the thrower? That’s not how gravity works.

It was like the author wrote the book and never read it back to herself, so she missed all the idiosynchrocies and how they “landed” (or didn’t land).

Speaking of reading this book out loud, I don’t think it should be. Again, it’s very purple prose-like so quite impossible to read the sentences in a way that doesn’t sound forced, sarcastic, or otherwise artificial. I think the reader’s voice makes even the positive portions of the characters’ experiences come across as grading or mean. There’s an example of this in the library scene where a mother with more experience gives well wishes to Blythe early on in Blythe’s pregnancy. The reader makes this interaction seem as if the experienced mom is fatigued, annoyed, or despises being a mom when this isn’t indicated in the text. In fact, Blythe’s character responds to the interaction with a longing and yearning to know when she herself will “experience that switch” to becoming a “natural mom” which I don’t think would be written that way if the author intended the interaction to be snarky. Just my opinion reading context clues.

Long story short, 2 stars so far.

If you want something well written; with raw, deep, and relatable features, I’d recommend Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy.

Hope this helps!

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

First and last chapter worth listening to

Revisado: 11-17-22

I don’t want to be too harsh with this book, as the author fully admits it’s a story about her story, not a story about singleness per se. I feel that’s where some of my tension is coming from, perhaps cause I wanted it to be a story wrestling with some of the issues of singleness, or an autobiography… but the in between space wasn’t clearly defined and left me a little discombobulated as a reader cause I wasn’t sure what type of literature I was reading (story, autobiography, political, etc).

I’d say the first and last chapter of this book are worth the price of admission! The stuff in between didn’t add much for me…. But I did greatly appreciate the bookend reminder that singleness just is. It’s not a holding pattern for something else or a lesser version of human flourishing. I will also say I think the invitation to explore our sexual ethic as Christians is a really good topic as well, though that chapter wasn’t necessarily written as well as some of the others, or felt a bit out of place in the “is this a biography or is this self help” confusion.

All in all, I’d say this book is a helpful resource in the conversation about closeness with Christ, accepting the life He’s calling you to regardless of how well it matches your expectations, and naming your own biases when it comes to singles as “less than” marrieds in life as well as in ministry.

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Great tips, somewhat inconsistent

Revisado: 02-26-22

There were parts of this book that were absolutely amazing and deeper than even some hard to read research based ennea-nerd books out there. Personally, I found that as the numbers went on, the details and descriptions got more vague and generic and stereotypical. But type one and two were INCREDIBLE and the book is worth it just to listen to and understand those types in my opinion.

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Thought provoking, missing something

Revisado: 01-23-22

I read this book at the recommendation of a friend I was talking to about this tension that exists of living faithfully to Jesus, and anxiety / doubt that our lives are messy, burnout-producing conveyor belts.

I love the title of this book and the premise of cultivating awareness of the lies and schemes that constantly surround us in the form of our own short-sighted desires, Satan’s schemes against us trusting God, and society’s insidious encouragement to pursue ourselves and our own happiness over Christ and faithfully following His wisdom for our lives.

That said, I felt like something was missing from the book. For one, I felt most of the book was on the important of identifying the lies and realizing they are dangerous, but I didn’t find a lot of guidance in *how* we recognize those lies or begin to use spiritual disciplines to replace those lies with truth. I was left a bit scared realizing how important it is to eradicate the lies but anxious because I don’t know how or where to start.

One other point, I felt the author did a really good job trying to represent nuance and be respectful and aware of the language he used, but I did find myself a bit stuck cause he used a lot of food metaphors and self discipline (like talking about how we need to have self discipline to not eat certain foods so we can maintain a physique etc) and I totally get the metaphor but I was hoping for other analogies along with it instead of re-using the food metaphor because good food / bad food can actually be really damaging for people, and as someone who has struggled with disordered eating and body shame in the past I was hoping to engage with this book and the metaphors more fully rather than being confronted with the lies themselves (if you eat a cookie you’ll get fat, ie cookies are bad ie you are bad). I also find it difficult when the author talks about fasting as one of the primary ways of increasing spiritual maturity / access to walking in the Spirit. I absolutely agree fasting is a wonderful spiritual discipline but I did hope for alternate spiritual disciplines to be listed in the book for those of us who can’t fast for mental health / medical reasons but still want to cultivate rhythms of walking with the Spirit and inviting God into our daily lives.

Overall, I recommend this book but especially the idea of listening to it with a friend or in a book club to discuss ways of practically using the info presented.

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