About book Promise Land: My Journey Through America's Self-Help Culture (2014)
Promise Land: My Journey Through America's Self Help Culture by Jessica Lamb, offers the reader an honest perspective of the self-help industry, its pros and cons. A personal story is also interwoven of a family tragedy (death of mother) that both father and daughter have never really come to terms with and resolved, until now. The writing style is incredibly honest, even to the point of critiquing some of her father’s psychological techniques as he works as a mental health expert. The book is filled with many poignant moments, and one particularly moving part is about how a child never expects to lose a parent. It is the unspoken assumption that a parent is going to stay alive forever, and to face the reality of deep loss at such a young age is perhaps where she learned to view life more cynically, distrustfully and skeptically. The hard hitting part, was when she turned one year older than her mother. The 'What if' questions abound at the end of the 'self-help' tour with the narrator questioning what life would be like if different choices were made, and if her mother could just ‘Hang in There’ (the popular phrase and poster on the front cover of the book), then she would have been helped by professionals.I enjoyed the author’s deep intelligence, and followed the journey, hopeful, that she would find some kind of new beginning, healing and closure. Although, it may not be the in-depth look that some people expect, it does offer something that many people can certainly agree with when discussing this field. The self-help culture that most of us have already sussed-out is filled with some charlatans out to make money, believing in their own hype. We also have genuine “self-help” books that are genuinely helpful. True, it is saturated with positive thinking and the belief that some sort of magical transformation can happen once you 'believe' that you really do deserve love, success and wealth. A fairly balanced view, in the end, of the whole culture and perhaps we all need a dose of more faith in life, but we also need to keep our feet on the ground as not every aspect of our world can be controlled and we have to take the good with the bad.The author is gifted with truth serum.“Lists give you the illusion that you can plan. Yet it is an illusion, nothing seems more superfluous than a grocery list of someone who has just been hit by a car. I say this as someone who has been hit by a car.” The author grew up immersed in the culture of self-help, of books and pamphlets and board games and gadgets and endless jargon-filled conversations about feelings. It wasn’t until she hit her thirties that Jessica began to wonder: if all this self-improvement arcana was as helpful as it promised to be, why wasn’t she better adjusted? Although well written, I didn't think the book was as clever as the reviews stated; the style seemed overdone and copied and this book just didn't hold my interest.
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Written in the style of Mary Roach but less focused and less crisp but also very, very funny.
—davidetr
At times laugh-out-loud funny so worth the time spent.
—robindeanna
