23 January 2011

"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin

The Happiness ProjectThe Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Genre: non-fiction, stunt memoir
On my TBR list?: yes, since Dec 2009

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I picked up this book after reading an article by Gretchen Rubin in the Huffington Post. It is a stunt memoir where the author attempts to live by several different happiness principles for an entire year. Rubin's project involved tackling a different area of her life each month and applying several different principles to making it better. One month it would be marriage, another month parenting, another month friendships, and so on. In preparation for this, Rubin read a lot of books on happiness as well as interviewing people who seemed to be successful in certain areas.

My one takeaway from reading this book didn't come from the author herself but from a person she interviewed who had a long successful marriage. The advice was that a married couple should always have one indoor game and one outdoor game that they like to play together. Simple things like this resonate with me, and this sounds like something that my husband and I could manage.

Overall, The Happiness Project was just OK to me. A lot of the book had a "See? All you have to do is this" tone to it that works in a crafting book, but was somewhat off-putting in this case. I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading it, but I don't think I'd recommend it.



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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This sounds interesting and since I'm actually a non-fiction junkie, I might pick this one up if I see it on sale. I'm going to check out the synopsis now......

-Shannon

Anastasia said...

Hm, I think I'd be put off by that sort of attitude, too.

Dani In NC said...

Anastasia, the sad thing is that I don't think that Rubin is smug or self-centered. It is difficult not to come across that way, though, when almost every story is about how you succeeded in this way or that. Even the few accounts of her failures didn't change the overall tone for me.

Ash said...

Too bad this wasn't as good as the very nice cover. :) I like the idea though.