3 out of 4 stars
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The Way of the Fairy Godmother is a non-fiction book by therapist Jennifer Morse.
Instead of looking at life through the lens of Cinderella, the author finally realized that it was the Fairy Godmother who held the key to achieving true happiness. Using this fairy tale, the author explains how readers should identify their strengths and pursue their dreams, just as the Fairy Godmother helped Cinderella to do. We should use positive language and focus our thoughts and actions toward the goals that bring us joy. Once we realize all of the positive skills that the Fairy Godmother taught Cinderella, we can apply those same skills to our own lives and make our fantasies come true.
The book can be summed up in three words: follow your dreams. It’s important to follow through on our dreams instead of just fantasizing about them. When we ignore what makes us happy, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. The author expands on this premise with the “nine keys to happiness.” An example is: “Focusing on harmony, health and success will bring us more harmony, health and success.” The chapters all speak to the overarching theme of the book while individual chapters also focus on one of the nine keys to happiness. The author uses examples from her own life and adds new details to the story of Cinderella to go along with her points. She also uses different terms, like the “Golden Ladder.” Each rung of the ladder symbolizes an action that we take toward realizing our dreams.
Overall, the author provides some interesting insights about a well-known story: “Cinderella does not want to be Queen in the, ‘I’m more powerful than you,’ sense. She wants sovereignty over her immediate world.” The author provides meaningful and universal advice. One example is that placing attention on negativity just makes that negativity grow. When dealing with a problem, we can still use positive language to think and speak about it. One of my favorite insights in the book is: “We each have the power and capacity to relieve our despair and regain our abilities to be at peace. Too often we let our challenging circumstances define us.” Even though she is talking about a fairy tale for most of the book, the author manages to stay grounded in reality. We all have obligations and problems that can’t simply be ignored, but our attitude can make a big difference.
I noticed many tiny errors throughout the book, most of which had to do with spelling: “indentifying” instead of “identifying”, “senor” instead of “senior”, “deserts” instead of desserts”, and so on. The phrasing of sentences was sometimes awkward, hard to follow, or just didn’t make sense: “When we have lost contact with our unique and precious self are so despondent the Fairy Godmother shows up….” At times, I had to re-read sentences to try to make sense of them, especially if commas weren’t used to separate thoughts and provide a needed pause. The use of the terms, especially the convoluted paragraph on page 20, was sometimes confusing. Other times, the terms were distracting, particularly with the overuse of “Deepest Desires.”
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. The writing could use some polishing so that it flows better and makes sense to the reader. Besides that, the book is filled with a lot of interesting ideas that should motivate readers to make positive changes in their thinking and actions. These ideas are meant to spark your desire to live the kind of life that would make you happy. I would recommend this book to those who want to be more positive and goal-oriented.
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The Way of The Fairy Godmother
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