2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Mark L. Wdowiak's If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts is a self-help guide to attaining success as according to the reader's own definition of success. Be it professional, creative, financial, or spiritual success, Mark charismatically brings the reader's attention back to the basics of what it means to pursue one's dreams. Wdowiak divides the steps to success into three parts: the meaning of responsibility, the importance of awareness, and achieving through action. He labels them respectively as "crawling," "walking" and "running." Within each of these area, Wdowiak breaks down the implications of each step, and demonstrates their significance with stories from his own personal background.
Much of the wisdom shared in this book resonated strongly with me and my own life experiences. I was able to powerfully relate to the heart of what this book is about. While nearly all of it is commonplace New Age philosophy, I appreciated experiencing this particular gathering of advice under the premise of seeking success. Each tidbit of wisdom is repeatedly drawn on throughout the book, which really reinforced their significance for me. I don't see myself forgetting the basic lessons taught in this book anytime soon, and I count that as a success on Wdowiak's part.
However, If Life Stinks is not a total success in my opinion. For one thing, it clearly was not proofread by anyone with a strong eye for grammatical errors. I found the same mistakes repeated all throughout the book. It seemed there was little attention or care given to the quality of writing, which doesn't bode well for a book written on success and its achievement. Secondly, I found the organization of this book to be severely lacking. Separating the book into three components is a strong start, but within each of these components the organization begins to fall apart. Wdowiak spends the bulk of the text talking in circles, rather than concisely getting to the point. I often had a hard time seeing how two consecutive sentences or paragraphs relate to each other, if at all. I also found myself commonly wondering what the message of a given chapter was intended to be, or if it even divulged anything new. Some chapters don't succeed in building upon the topics at all, but simply rephrase what's already been said. Such chapters could be ommitted entirely.
I had a rather difficult time selecting a fair rating for this book. On one hand, I feel the basic heart of this book to be quite good. There's a lot of potential here given the content and the strength of Wdowiak's voice. When all is said and done, however, I have to give this book a rating of 2 out of 4 stars. While the basic content of the book is worthy of 3 stars, the quality of writing is so poor that I cannot score it any higher than 2 stars.
This book would be a great fit for success-seeking readers who learn best in casual settings. Readers who are new to the self-help genre will likely find this book useful in affecting life change. Readers that need specific instruction and action steps, however, will not find this book to be very helpful.
******
If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your But's
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like dreamthewilderness's review? Post a comment saying so!
