Review: How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay

If you, like many of us, are finding this current world to be more than you can handle, I have the book for you. If you've never read any of The Bloggess' previous books, this may be the one for you to start with.

How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself by Jenny Lawson (aka the Bloggess) is a toolbox fill of strategies that you can use to help when, as a dear friend used to say, "life is too much with you." You can read it from start to finish or just pick it up and open to a random chapter now and then.

Some of the tips you may have heard before, but framed in a way that is unique and often quirky. For example, the chapter “Wash Your Brain More Than You Wash Your Bra” is about the importance of getting enough sleep and why. The chapter “Celebrate Good Times, Come On!” is very similar to a saying that I've been using the last few years: celebrate the small wins.

For me, some of the most important chapters were the ones when she talks about cultivating creativity when it's hard to make yourself to anything. If you read my earlier post (Page Paralysis), you know that this is something I fight. It's not so much writer's block as trouble getting the energy to do more than the bare minimum.

Part of the insidiousness of depression is that it lies. It whispers in your ear that anything you do isn't worth doing so why even try. Lawson gently takes your hand and gives you suggestions and directions on how to lead yourself out.

If you need a nudge now and then and a reminder that you are not alone in a world gone mad, this is the book for you. I love How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself so much that I bought my husband his own copy. Get your own copy now.

5 lattes out of 5

Disclaimer: This eARC was provided by Viking Penguin / Penguin Life via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.