The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad went from being one of my most highly anticipated reads of 2025 to being one of my favorite reads of the year. This book lived up to my highest expectations. Suleika has achieved absolute magic with this collection of essays, reflections, and prompts. When trying to explain to my friends why they should read this book, I've gotten stuck trying to figure out what to say. It's impossible to put into words what exactly Jaouad is doing in this book. She, herself, admits this very thing in one of the chapters, noting her feelings of inadequacy when describing her book about journaling. And yes, this is a book about journaling. But it is also a book about life and death and love and self-care and community care and writing and creativity. And it is beautiful. If there is any part of you that is tempted to pick up this book, please do.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for my advanced copy.

If you love to journal, or would really like to start, this is the book you need!

This book is full of beautiful essays and prompts that invite you to delve deeper into your thoughts and emotions and write meaningfully about them. It This book is set up as a "100 days of journaling" practice, reading one essay and prompt per day, but I have been taking it slower. Some of these prompts I have to think about.
It may be unique to me, but several of the prompts I've read so far deal with memories of childhood, and since I have very few memories of my childhood, I'm having to really think about some of them.
I would highly recommend this for anyone who knows the power of the written word, the written memory, the written emotion. You owe it to yourself to buy this beautiful book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC version in exchange for an honest review.

The Book of Alchemy isn’t just a book—it’s a companion, a ritual, a quiet revolution. Suleika Jaouad, author of Between Two Kingdoms, offers a guide to journaling that feels less like instruction and more like invocation, filled with reflections from over a hundred artists, thinkers, and writers—Elizabeth Gilbert, Jon Batiste, George Saunders, Gloria Steinem, and more—each offering prompts and wisdom to spark your own journey.

What makes this book feel magical is its dual role: it holds space for you and calls you to action. It's a meditation on grief, change, and self-discovery—but also a creative engine. A seed bank of questions and ideas that gently encourage you to start where you are, and see what blooms.

Inspired by Suleika’s own practice, this book lends itself beautifully to a 100-day creative project. Whether you’re journaling, painting, photographing, or simply showing up to your life with more intention, these prompts serve as daily invitations to explore, feel, and create. You don’t need a grand plan—just a willingness to begin.

What moved me most is how it made me want to pick up a pen. Not for performance, but for presence. It reminded me that the page can hold what we can’t yet say out loud—and that something sacred happens when we return to it, day after day.

If you’re looking for a gentle guide through grief, growth, or a creative rebirth, The Book of Alchemy will walk with you. And maybe, even help you find your own kind of magic along the way.

Essays on creativity and effect. Each chapter ends with a prompt that gives you meditations or actions to build your creative stamina and artistic breadth.

Jaouad has gathered thinkers, artists, and innovators in a volume of inspiration. Use their ideas to journal your way to the next season of invention. Amazing resource! (PS You don't need to agree with everyone to learn from them.)

Title: The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
Author: Suleika Jaouad
Genre: Non Fiction
Rating: 5.00
Pub Date: April 22, 2025

I received a complimentary eARC from Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #Gifted

T H R E E • W O R D S

Accessible • Thoughtful • Transformative

📖 S Y N O P S I S

For as long as she can remember, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She has used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to ride its roughest waves. It has buoyed her through illness, through heartbreak, and the deepest oceans of uncertainty. And Suleika is not alone. For so many people, journaling is a process of discovery, sometimes vulnerable and terrifying, always transformative.

The Book of Alchemy is based on the premise that journaling is an essential tool for navigating the challenges of modern life. We live in a world where we’re not only forced to grapple with personal peaks and valleys but also global upheavals far beyond our control—political, social, economic, technological, environmental. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.

Designed to be a companion through challenging times, it explore the art of journaling, offering encouragement, direction, and support to those looking for a way to navigate the in-between. It is designed to expand that space, giving readers tools to engage with discomfort, to ask questions, to peel back the layers, to uncover their truest self—and in doing so, to find clarity and calm, to hold the astonishingly beautiful and the often unbearable facts of life in the same palm.

💭 T H O U G H T S

I read Suleika's memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, in March of 2020 shortly following the death of my partner and best friend, and her words and writing have stuck with me ever since. It's a good I return to on occasion when life seems overwhelming. I've continued to follow her journey since then and receive her weekly newsletter in my inbox every Sunday. When she announced she'd be releasing The Book of Alchemy I immediately knew I wanted to read it despite my on again, off again relationship with my own journaling practice.

Divided into ten distinct and themed sections, each with an introduction from Suleika herself, this book comprises a collection of 100 short essays/vignettes/reflections and companion prompts from a wide variety of contributors with diverse backgrounds and experiences. It showcases a broad spectrum of approaches and prompts for journaling, some of which resonated with me more than others.

While some may find it overly long, Suleika explains the reasoning behind including 100 essays in keeping with the idea of the 100-day project. To me this is the type of book to be savoured and to be returned to, rather than to simply be consumed in rapid succession. I intend to return to many of the prompts as I explore my own journaling process, in order to find what works and doesn't for me.

The Book of Alchemy extends a much needed invitation to slow down, to reflect, and to explore our own world in an accessible manner and with emphasis on the process over quality. It's a meditation of the powers of journaling, of returning to the page time after time. I can't imagine there is a greater journaling companion out there containing such inspired content, which is equally relevant to those coming to journaling for the very first time as for veteran journalers. It's the type of book to return to time and time again and has inspired me to embark on a new 100-day project and work at making journaling a more consistent practice in my own life.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• journaling
• the creative life
• inspired musings

⚠️ CW: cancer, medical content, medical trauma, mental illness, grief, death

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"I reach for the page like I reach for prayer: to plead, to confess, to commune, to remember that all is not chaos, all is not lost."

"Our toiling will not change the fact that the path ahead is full of uncertainty, that there will be many obstacles, both known and unknown."

"The journal is oceanic. It is capacious. It is memory, reverie, distillation. It teaches me to pay attention, to see the world anew, to rearrange the pieces, to play."

"The journal allows us to navigate life's water, be they turbulent or calm, and to learn to hold the paradoxes - the beautiful and cruel facts of life - in an open palm."

i greatly anticipated this new book by author, Suleka Jaoaud since I loved her previous book---Between Two Kingdoms, (hard as it was topic wise to read at times) I didn't read anything about this book so was a bit surprised to find out that there is writing by other writers, in addition to Jaouad, who gave various writing prompts for readers to use and respond to. Although different than Between Two Kingdoms, Jaoaud's use of words grabbed me throughout. She is so descriptive and in her writing, which I love! This is the first book that I have ever gone to the bookstore on release day to purchase, and gladly add to my collection to read again as I wish. Thank you to Netgalley for this free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

There is plenty to like about this book. It is an interesting blend of memoir, short essays and journal prompts. Each chapter has a theme On Memory,
On Fear, On Seeing, On Love, etc. I found some of the chapters more interesting than others. Many of the authors/contributors are well known and some of my favorite essays were written by authors I haven't heard of. For me, the short essays were often a little too short and Jaouad's autobiographical introductions to each chapter seemed too long. Not every prompt will appeal to every writer but each one of them is thought provoking. Many of them are stellar.
Recommended for both beginning and seasoned journal writers.

As a lifelong journaler, I loved this collection of essays and prompts. It reminded me of why I love this practice, why it is so powerful and important to me, and although I just read through them this time, I would love to go back and do the prompts over the course of a few months (they’re actually good ones!). I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking to get into journaling or longtime journalers who want to either refresh their practice or are just wanting a love letter to a favorite hobby.

I am not giving this book a star review in public because a reviewer here wrote that the author plagiarized works from other authors and bullied them. I did a web search for information on that and found nothing, but it wouldn’t be the first time a well known author and publisher squashed controversy over unethical behavior, and I wouldn’t want to help promote a book that was created in harmful ways. I hope others with either more information or better sleuthing skills can shed some light on this.

That said…. This book is an interesting read because it is very short essays by all different modern authors and then Jaouad just has a one or two sentence writing prompt after each one in the same vein. I wrote as I read through it and ended up writing some entries that I really liked, that I probably wouldn’t have written otherwise.

I read a digital ARC of this book via netgalley.

This book caught my attention because of the cover, and the magical word, ‘alchemy.’ The contributors to this collection of writing (creating) prompts is an academy of beautiful human luminaries. The chapters are sorted by theme with a beginning essay from Jaouad. Her words and memories is a type of reckoning written in a voice I find difficult to avoid. She reaches off the page, trying to make me grow. These essays are followed by guided prompts put forth by the other contributors. The prompts themselves range from the tried and true-write what you remember-to the completely new. I already tried one out today and got a couple pages done, this book is clearly for adults, but upperclassmen high school English teachers could definitely put it to use. Very well done.

In this inspirational book, Suleika Jaouad finds healing and solace in the art of journaling in this remarkable guide featuring journal prompts that will guide readers on an inward journey to their heart and soul.

I was never one for journaling, although I did partake in it every now and then when inspiration struck. I wanted to read this book as I have always found writing to be the easiest way for me to channel my feelings. This book features journaling prompts by some incredible people that will help you to tune into your inner thoughts, ideas, and reflections on life, its mysteries, and simplicity. What I loved about these journal prompts is that they were not complicated, in fact many were simple enough to allow anything to come through. This book is indeed a book of alchemy, because sifting through the detritus of our interior life can be daunting, but once refined through the process of creative channeling, can help one access the gold of truth and beauty.

The author's journey through illness and health is heroic and I do believe that creativity is one of the greatest healing tools we have at our disposal. Whether journaling is just a hobby or a serious spiritual practice for you, why not give The Book of Alchemy a try and see what gifts the marriage of heart, mind, and soul can offer you.

I love love this book! Sometimes books on creativity as well as guided journals/writing prompts can feel repetitive. l I really loved all the passages on creativity written by the various writers. And the prompts are unique, expansive and get your brain into another dimension which bodes well for creativity. Even if you aren't interested in creating in the moment, I think this book would be wonderful for changing momentary perspective or sparking awe/metaphor. This a book you don't have to read front to back. You can jump around and pick and choose chapters, open it up whenever you're wanting to think about creativity differently or write something. I highly recommend to those who are interested in writing and are maybe bored with a lot of creativity/guided writing journals out right now.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this ARC.

Here we have a collection of essays about the transformative power of journaling, introduced and curated by longtime sufferer of Leukemia, Soleika Jaouad. There are a hundred essays - some by prominent people - and each one is followed by a related journaling prompt that you’re invited to expand on in your own journal if you choose. The book is divided into ten sections, with essays corresponding to the theme of each section. I found this to be a valuable collection of thoughts, and wrote many of these prompts down for future reference. That being said, this collection is a bit bulky and feels about 60 pages too long, but I really enjoyed it nevertheless.

this book was pretty good! I liked the advice, and self help tips they gave. I also liked the little essays included, some were inspiring and interesting. The religion was a bit much, the spirituality parts were interesting!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

As a therapist who often uses expressive writing in my work with clients, I found 'The Book of Alchemy' by Suleika Jaouad to be such a powerful resource. This collection of reflections and prompts provides readers with an invitation to slow down, check in with yourself, and explore your emotions with curiosity and care. The writing prompts are thoughtful and rich, helping you reflect without feeling pressured to get it “right.”

What really stood out to me were the personal stories shared alongside the prompts—they’re full of life lessons and moments of vulnerability that feel like gentle reminders that we’re not alone in our struggles. This is the kind of book I’d keep close—on a nightstand or desk—perfect for morning reflections or unwinding at the end of the day. Whether you’re new to journaling or a seasoned writer, it offers a beautiful way to process emotions and reconnect with yourself.

One of the best books to spark creativity that I've found in years.
I'm a fan of Suleika's work, a newsletter subscriber and admirer in the ways she's made her career work alongside chronic illness and disability. As a disabled writer and creative myself, it's been challenging to get myself to write daily (and though this is her writing advice, she does urge the reader to be gentle and meet one's body where its at) but the fact that each of these little snippets tell a story and come up with a writing prompt to spark creativity is GENIUS. While there's no space for journalling (it's a book, not a workbook,) I'd take this in any way you'd like, and I'm actually trying to do a prompt from this book once per day now in order to fuel my writing.

Highly recommend this book and Jaouad's work. Another slam dunk.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

For those who love to journal and for those who want to journal...

Whether or not you are familiar with Jaouad's Substack newsletter "Isolation Journals", you are in for a treat with this book. Born from Jaouad's love of journaling and documenting, The Isolation Journals was created in 2020 during the height of the pandemic when she started communal journaling, inviting others to contribute. Each "journal" entry—or essay—that was shared offered a prompt for the rest of the readers to get their creative juices flowing.

The Book of Alchemy is a collection of 100 of these essays from The Isolation Journals, each offering a prompt that relates back to the essay and invites readers to open up their journals and their hearts, and write their own piece. With prompts on Beginning; Memory; Fear; Seeing; Love; Body; Rebuilding; Ego; Purpose; and Alchemy; The Book of Alchemy will take readers through a slew of outsider experiences that force them to turn inward, reflect, and recognize the universal experience of being human.

This book best works as a "100 days of journaling" practice, reading one essay and prompt per day. But if you are anything like me, you don't have the patience for that. In that case, my best advice with this book would be to settle in with it and read through the whole thing—cover to cover—and see what resonates with you, what speaks to you. When you finish, start from the beginning again. Only this time, let yourself move through the prompts one day at a time.

I look forward to grabbing my own physical copy when it releases so I can underline, highlight, and deeply engage.

Thank you Penguin Random House for the early copy in exchange for an honest review! Available Apr. 22 2025