I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

I really had high hopes for thsi book based on the subject matter. Unfortunately, it just wasn't a hit.
Some of the essays were boring and hard to get through.
I only really enjoyed 2 of the essays which is ... a bummer.

Uplifting Stories by Ione Butler is a collection of essays written by individuals who are resilient against all odds and represent a source of hope and inspiration. The author runs a website by the same title and is to help provide some everyday positivity in the lives of over 1.5 million viewers. The stories are arranged by topics of Human Connection, Overcoming Adversity, Acts of Service, Game-Changers, Pursuing Your Passion and Purpose, and The Unimaginable. Although there were some good essays, the writing structure was awkward at times that made it seem a bit clunky at times. In addition, I struggled with the first essay as the majority of the first essay was centered mostly around Greg and not Kouhyar as much. It was also a bit weird how they through in an anecdote about a black woman in Better Angels when it was about Greg and Kouhyar which made it come across as trying to justify Greg as not a racist and pander on how he's a really good guy. I see the value in combatting polarization and I think there is great value in sharing similar stories to this, but the rhetoric used by Greg and how the story was portrayed was concerning.

Many thanks to the publisher Tiller Press and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I hate to be negative about a book that is literally about being positive but I had high expectations for this book and unfortunately I don't think it lived up to them. While there were a few stories of interest to me for the most part I felt pretty uninspired and even bored. It took me months to get through this short book that should have taken a couple hours max. I realized today as I pushed to finish it that my biggest issue with it was the writing style, it is very amateur and reads like an essay or paper a 7th grade student would turn in.

I have already recommended this book to my career newsletter readers b/c in tough times like these, it's wonderful to encounter positive stories. Uplifting Stories is a fun, inspirational read. I loved the diversity of the stories, and the encouraging words the author includes in-between the real-life examples.

While my newsletter isn't published online, it is sent out to ~2,000 of my readers. Here's what I wrote:

Sometimes you hear good news in major media, like positive results on a vaccine trial or slowing growth rates in the number of Covid cases. But most of the news is pretty grim. So I was excited to read Uplifting Stories by Ione Butler, creator of the Uplifting Content blog and podcast, which is aptly titled because it only posts good news. Butler features different true stories of people who will inspire and delight you by:
• fighting for a cause, like Destiny Watford, a HS student who prevented a company from creating a toxic waste dump near her school;
• overcoming obstacles like Kyle Maynard, a quadruple amputee who summited Mount Kilimanjaro; or
• pursuing their passions like Kenan Heppe, a white guy from Oregon who found acting success in China.

This is essentially a non-fiction anthology from one author. All of the stories are meant to be positive in some way and they succeed. Congrats to the author, and thanks. We can all use some uplifting stories, particularly when they're true, which makes them more impactful. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Uplifting Stories is filled with several short stories of varying themes but they all have the common ground of being inspiring, hopeful, and humbling, They make us rethink how bad our own situation is and to help put us in the shoes of others we thought we couldn't understand at all.