Lisa Sugar

Lisa Sugar's new business/self-improvement book brims with optimism and promotes the belief that working hard and playing nice is the key to a successful, happy life. Sugar preaches the modern "do what you love" and "find your passion" gospel that is ubiquitous today, while at the same time grounding her advice in the reality that finiding that passion means working really, REALLY hard, may involve many false stars, and most certainly will involve lots of time as an underling before you get to do what you actually want to be doing. This book is like one big pep talk to get people going on a career they've dreamed of, with helpful questionnaires at the end of each chapter to identify skills, passions, job requirements, and goals. The book had a friendly, easy-to-identify-with tone.

Sugar founded and runs a successful celebrity and lifestyle news website. One of her rules from Day One was that they would not put anything on the website that they wouldn't say to a celebrity in front of his/her face -- and no body shaming (great advice). In that vein, I'll share some reasons why this book rated 3 stars with me instead of higher (which I would gladly share with Ms. Sugar in person). While the overall tone of the book is positive and inspirational, I had a hard time identifying exactly who the target audience would be. It seemed like overall it was speaking to someone just getting started in their career, but then would shift to specific concerns of working moms (who, generally speaking, are further along in their careers). More focus would have made this a better book. The book was also a bit repetitive and could have benefitted from better editing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (mehr)