When I picked Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided up from the library, I was almost embarrassed to be seen with the book, even going so far as hiding the cover under those of the other books in my stack. The promotion of positivity is so pervasive in our society that I felt self-conscious checking out...
I sought this out after reading Ehrenreich's L.A. Times essay on her experience with breast cancer. The first chapter of this book is indeed called "Smile or Die: The Bright Side of Cancer." Because I'm shallow, I didn't find the transition from the personal to the political a smooth one. It works t...
Everyone who read and preaches The Secret and everyone in the Irish Government and senior Civil Service should be forcefed this book. Barbara Ehrenreich got breast cancer and got annoyed at the constant message of not letting it get you down (I had cancer too, I had a Doctor tell me that because I ...
Ehrenreich makes a solid case that the positive thinking movement is more harmful than helpful, especially when it leads to the converse of "The Secret"--that is, if people can attract good things by thinking positively, then people who have bad things happen to them must have been thinking too nega...
WHY I WANT TO READ THIS: Just the title felt like a relief. I've always been suspicious of the "power of positive thinking," the "turn a frown upside down" philosophy, the pernicious idea that if you hold positive thoughts about your future it'll all be good (and the dark flip side of that, whih is ...
My own personal relationship to "positive thinking" is hard to sum up for perfect strangers. I try to stay away from judging my own thoughts as "positive" or "negative" at all; I don't really like to use those words in general but I admit they can be a useful shorthand. All feelings on the spectrum ...
Overbroad strokes and a sour attitude no matter what render this one of Ehrenreich's worse showings. In her contempt for the positive psychology movement, she sloppily confounds a varity of professional and pop practices, and seems to ignore the vast world of cognitive psychotherapy, which is nothin...
This book irritated the hell out of me.Ordinarily, I think that Barbara Ehrenreich is spot-on. However, in this case, I think she missed the boat on some levels.In her short book about why she thinks positive thinking is wrong (based on her experience as a breast cancer survivor), Ehrenreich basica...
Read the reviews by Trevor (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79766493) and Lena (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75116738) They are better, but I couldn’t resist a few comments.I didn’t expect to like this book. I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about Nickle and Dimed, but this title was chose...
Important: Our sites use cookies.
We use the information stored using cookies and similar technologies for advertising and statistics purposes.
Stored data allow us to tailor the websites to individual user's interests.
Cookies may be also used by third parties cooperating with BookLikes, like advertisers, research companies and providers of multimedia applications.
You can choose how cookies are handled by your device via your browser settings.
If you choose not to receive cookies at any time, BookLikes will not function properly and certain services will not be provided.
For more information, please go to our Privacy Policy.
Log in with Facebook 
