Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Proud Cliché, Baby!

The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown

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Welp, it feels vulnerable to write a review of a book about vulnerability, a book I really love.  A book that admitting I love means also admitting that I suffer from so many of the mental patterns she describes and that yes, I do need the help she’s offering.  My judgey-mcjudgersons voice says, “You’re such a cliché — a 40-something white woman raving about Brené Brown.”  Yes.  Yes I am.  And also there’s a reason this woman is as famous as she is.  I’ve listened […]

Brené Brown, Checklist Style

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

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Yeah, I’m on a self-help kick. I’m 40; it’s the developmental work of my age. (So says the author anyway.)  I crave the inner peace and relief from perfectionism promised by this genre, but the snappy lists, catchy aphorisms, and presumed energetic/auric spirituality that typifies much of it makes my teeth hurt. Thankfully, Brené Brown offers my logical, rational mind a way to process all the woo that is self-help. Hard data and quantifiable patterns are interwoven with the snappy lists and catchy aphorisms, and […]

The Gift of The Gifts of Imperfection

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

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“Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” This is one of those books I wish I had as a young girl. Perhaps I wouldn’t have picked up on all of the intricacies and layers then that are understandable only with development and years of self-discovery; however, this may have helped to lay a […]

Yes, the Title IS Quite a Mouthful

I thought It Was Just Me (But it Isn't): The Journey From "What Will People Think?" to " I Am Enough." by Brené Brown

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Technically this is a “Did Not Finish” because my library loan expired when I was about 30 pages from the end and I’m not going to bother re-borrowing it, mainly because I was so close to the end I’m certain I have gotten everything out of the book that I was going to get.  It’s fine. It’ll probably do more for some other folks, but for me it was fine. Self-help books like this usually aren’t my thing, but this is part of what I […]

“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists–it’s so easy to keep us quiet.”

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown

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Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, has spent two decades studying shame, vulnerability, and courage. This doesn’t necessarily make her a lot of fun at parties. In fact, she jokes that when she tells people she studies shame, they look away uncomfortably and find someone else to talk to. Yet she also has five best-selling books to her name, and her  TED Talk on vulnerability is one of the top 25 most popular TED talks of all time. I hesitate to […]

Y’all…. This one’s gonna be a bit different

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  Lemme tell you a not-so-secret-secret about ‘adulthood’: Nobody knows what the f they are doing. So much of being an adult is dealing with sucky situations – all the sudden a lot of your friend’s parents are dying, or your sister-in-law gets cancer (again), or this one has an affair that devastates that one, or your cousin suffers another miscarriage while her sister is expecting twins.  Literally, life just becomes chock full of situations that you are not prepared to face, and suddenly you […]



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