Reading Journal Entry: Your Life, Only a Gazillion Times Better, by Cathy Breslin and Judy May Murphy

I like self-help books. I think they're fun. Self-knowledge is not a task easily accomplished, and good self-help books can provide a basis for reflection and improvement in all kinds of areas.

Gazillion claims not to be 'the same ole' self-help'. In fact it's a rather mediocre rehashing of evaluation and improvement techniques with a weird, 'hip' according to the blurb, overlay of girl-talk and new agey junk.

I've never had a self-help book recommend colonic irrigation to me before. Gotta give it that.

Gazillion also recommends stalking - choosing mentors who you may not even know and studying details such as the way they walk into a room, what makes their marriage successful, and other potentially restraining-order-inducing minutiae.

The authors also, annoyingly, buy into the fashionable belief that your beliefs about the world and your relationships are all-powerful. Is you husband unsupportive? Never mind, just choose to 'feel cherished'. Is your family holding you back? Never mind, just choose to believe they support you. And for a final contradiction, choose to believe that you can do anything, but be careful not to set unrealistically high expectations for yourself.

In short: a total waste of time.

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