Great book for implementing tools and strategies to start healing trauma. Asks informed questions to help you address issues at hand to be able to heal and move forward. Whilst mostly aimed at entrepreneurs, it also has a lot of applicable information and skills that can be used by any kind of person to grow and heal. Well researched and compassionately written.

I found that the author was giving advice without the qualifications or experience to do so made me feel that they were judging or preaching.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC

My first question reading a book of this nature is what qualifications does the author have to tell the world how to be happy?
Janelle Bruland brands herself as a businesswoman, coach and mentor, mother and grandmother. She has no medical or psychotherapy qualifications. She's written other books in a similar genre “The Success Lie: 5 Simple Truths to Overcome Overwhelm and Achieve Peace of Mind”
Your Way back to Happy, opens with her personal story, I did not want to read an autobiography. “This book shares my journey out of the trauma that had held me captive for over thirty years” she states in the introduction and her shock of being diagnosed with PTSD. I would not have continued had I not agreed to review this book.

The religious references don't sit well with many people ‘God puts us back together again, life moves forward” Yet she also uses Buddhism practices like meditation and mindfulness. I've read many books in this genre in my 30 years of working in the lifestyle sector.
The title attracted me, Your Way Back to Happy, was this the publisher decision? Who doesn’t want more happiness? But is Janelle the right person to tell us how to be happy, amongst a plethora of more qualified authors? I had recently read Hard Wiring Happiness by Rick Hanson. He walks the talk and has masses of scientific data to back up his book, from his interesting career. It has been number one on my reading list for 3 years.

There are over 20,000 books on Amazon with the word happy in the title. How to choose from that list? There is also a book called A Way Back to Happy that could confuse buyers of this book, it is a novel by Olivia Spooner, she suggests being happy, is to first fall apart.
I felt that most of what Brunell had to say, came out of her years of being in therapy herself. I have met enough celebrities and workshop leaders in my life as a yoga teacher /retreat facilitator, who have been in therapy for years and can easily spout a few one liners, about meditation and breathwork when put in front of an audience. But they do not take it any deeper? Some of their lives are a complete mess. Good fodder for a novel set on a desert island.

I am sure Brunell can hold an audience with her qualifications and skills with leadership talk, but this book was about her personal journey. I was looking for a book I would recommend to people going through a bad patch of unhappiness and the cover looked cheerful enough with its symbolic smile. Everyone is looking for the magic happy book, like the youth pill, but this isn’t it.

More science quotes would be helpful. Her introduction to techniques on meditation and breathwork were simplistic and had no depth to them. There are plenty of books, classes and free videos that would be a lot more helpful. The price is a hefty $18.99. Too expensive in my humble opinion.

Also there are too many buzz phrases promising to deliver but don’t. Reclaim your energy, confidence, and mental clarity. Step into a life of true freedom, purpose, and peace—on your terms.

This is my own honest review after an in depth reading of a book distributed by Netgalley for free prior to publication.

I received a free copy through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it. All opinions are my own.

The title of this one caught my eye when I saw it on Netgalley and I was excited to read it. Unfortunately I don't think I am the right audience for this book and this book failed to resonate with me. The book seems focused on entrepreneurs and leaders, I hadn't realized this would be the focus. And while a lot of advice is broader applicable, it still felt this was who she was talking to. As well as a very specific type of leader with a certain personality and I didn't feel like I fit that.

Besides that there are also some subtle religious undertones that become a bit more overt later on in the book which isn't something that really resonates with me. I also didn't like the slight focus and tone that implied you would be a better leader if you healed from your trauma, I don't like the focus on productivity this implied.

I just felt like this book was not quite aimed for me, then the parts that I thought would be helpful didn't quite resonate with me or were things I already knew and then the rest were parts without enough detail so I still didn't know if any of those therapies would be helpful.

Despite not connecting to the earlier parts I kept reading as the later part promised more techniques for dealing with trauma that I was curious about those. Then when I reached that part I mostly skimmed through the meditation and breath work parts, I've read plenty about those and books that I resonated more with for that matter, this book didn't provide anything new to me on these topics.

Then the later part with more strategies and therapies was mostly just a whole list with some brief information and the author gave some information about them, but not enough for me to really get a feel for it. She might say she worked with brain feedback and did exercises, but I still had no idea what type of exercises these were or why this helped her so much.

To summarize: I don't think this is a bad book per se, but it wasn't for me. The tone didn't resonate with me. The book is aimed at a certain types of entrepreneurs and leaders which wasn't me. A lot of the information and advice wasn't new to me and the parts that were new to me had insufficient information to decide whether it would be helpful for me or not. I wasn't really invested in her personal story for some reason. And the religious tone, more subtle at first and more overt in later parts didn't really work for me either. I really wanted to get something out of this book, but it missed the mark for me.

Unfortunately overly simplistic and too focused on the author’s own journey to be useful to someone who is already somewhat knowledgeable about the topic.

Overall this was a good book, which I enjoyed.

I would say I probably am the target market (I'm a middle aged woman with my own business) and I felt it was well written and the points made were valid and interesting.

The writing was very accessible, the writer has a friendly style which speaks directly to the reader without jargon but for me as a British reader it felt a little too 'American'.

However, I did feel the book was quite brief, and there wasn't anything that felt revolutionary or groundbreaking, more of a reminder of things that you already know or might read in a magazine.

It's an easy read and light enough to dip into, but not my usual genre and probably not something that will stay in my mind.

I didn’t realize when I requested this book that it’s written by a life coach and it’s designed for self employed entrepreneurs. This is the author’s personal story of overcoming PTSD and it’s a motivational book for other women who are trying to run their own businesses. None of the psychological information was new to me and I don’t think I’m the target audience, but it’s an affirming book and could be helpful for those who relate to her story.

I read a digital ARC of this book via netgalley.

The writing style of this book made it entertaining. It was more story/conversational format. It was written with ways to implement the suggestions given in an easy way. Great resource.

I liked this book. The style of writing, which I'd say is fairly conversational and based on anecdotes in some parts, wasn't necessarily my favorite aspect, as great as the book was; however, if someone likes the feeling of a book which truly speaks to them as the reader and enjoyer, they'll probably love both the style and the content.

I really appreciated that in addition to anecdotal experiences, the author included suggested questions and activity checklists to put into practice before, during, or after reading from the book. I particularly enjoyed the mention of different basic/possibly ubiquitous spaces where one can relax.

Some of the chapters are fairly brief, but I don't think this is a problem, as much as something I'd like to mention to other readers interested in this book. They're a good length, especially given the opportunity to learn through experience by following the activities mentioned outside of one's time spent reading. Good stuff.

Thank you to Post Hill Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.