This was an easy to read self help book that I received for free. I voluntarily chose to review it. I've given it a 4* rating. I will say that you need to want to do this for this success to happen. Many of the suggestions are very common sense but not necessarily easy to follow. For someone who wants to work at this, this would be a real good starting point.

The Pursuit of Happiness by Alan Trustman
Was interested in reading this story because of the gang affiliation around Boston area. Have known many over the years and have heard a lot of stories of their life.
Find them interesting, I'm not sure why. This one starts out with a man just enjoying his drink and food when a Dominican gang hold up the joint but the man does not let them get away with it.
Not any of the 7. Then we find Dick Berton in KY various different routes and means of transportation. Love learning about his next assignment where he's explaining to the women who's father owns the yacht about the Boston gangs and familiar names to me.
This mission involves a shark, in a tank in the Pacific ocean. They teach him about sharks for several weeks as they all go out into the cages themselves. This also gives me time to understand and learn. Love hearing of the math involved in everything and easy explanations of what some of the terms mean.
I never knew what scuba meant either. Liked hearing of all the poisonous sea life.
Sort of reminds me of Frank, the transporter as he has to make up his own mind with what he has when things don't go according to plan...
Love all the action and adventure, travel and learning new things and adult romance and sex scenes. Love that the author doesn't take 500 pages to tell this story as others would've done. Can't wait to read more from this author.
Received a review copy via publicist and this is my honest review.

My first review for Bust Magazine is online today and featured on the front page! http://bust.com/books/19625-jill-filipovic-h-spot-review.html.

Pitching (and getting rejected) is finally starting to pay off!

Big Magic is a self-supporting book regarding creativity, and is aimed at writers and artists, but it's also, for anyone who wants to inject some creative magic into their every day lives. The questions Gilbert proposes are simple ones: What are you curious about? And what would you keep doing, even if you knew you would fail? 

Gilbert’s approach to creativity is sometimes a bit mystical, but it’s also deeply democratic, even tilting towards radical. In some parts I rolled my eyes, but then there were other parts that had me fist pumping in solidarity. I can imagine my Literary Criticism and Writing Professors turning absolutely green at some of Gilbert’s ideas. “Are you one of those people who believe that the arts are the most serious and important thing in the world?” she asks about 100 pages in. “If so, my friend, then you and I must part ways right here.” She thinks creativity can be meaningful, sure, but she wants you to get off your high horse about it, and not quit your day job.

More importantly, she rejects the idea of certain people being geniuses, instead she claims that everyone has a genius that comes and goes, and it's our job to work humbly, without ever expecting it to arrive, yet at the same time, to but be ready for when it does; as it's very often without pomp and circumstance.

So, for instance, you might be gardening and you'll get an idea about a flower, so you do some research on said flower, and then that research will lead you to another clue, and then another clue will follow that. Gilbert proposes that it's our job to follow that chain of intrigue to see where it will lead. Hint: It's often not where you'd expect, so just go with it.

“I cannot even be bothered to think about the difference between high art and low art. I will fall asleep with my face in the dinner plate if someone starts discoursing to me about the academic distinction between true mastery and mere craft,” she writes. “I don’t ever want to confidently announce that this person is destined to become a great artist while that person should give it up.” In other words, Gilbert believes every single person has innate creative ability; it’s our job to tap into it, if we so wish.

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Furthermore, Gilbert suggests that we should stop searching for the idea no one else has had. Gilbert thinks people are way too obsessed with “original” ideas, and would do better to find more "authentic" ones, instead.

In conclusion, this book helped me to make peace with my own creativity on a lot of different levels, and for that I am grateful. Since reading this book, I have taken concrete steps to shift my own inner dialogue, and it has had a lot of positive changes in all aspects of my life. 

Amanda Palmer --- musician, artist, connector of dots, blogger, tweeter, writer, philosopher, speaker, wife, friend, and most importantly human --- really pulls back the curtain in this book, to show us what she does behind the scenes to make the final product (what we see when we buy her music, her book, or live concert) happen, and it's pretty awesome, in my humble opinion.

She says that we ALL can ask for help from everyone, and in the age of the internet we're meeting more people in a week, than we'd met in a lifetime, before. She says it's all about putting yourself out there, trusting that you will get what you need, and being open to receiving the blessings. It's about shouting down from your open Windows (both literally, and figuratively in the form of blog, twitter, Instagram, etc) and inviting people in. 

It sounds easy, but for me, it's really hard. I didn't grow up in a family that asked for things. So, this is a grand challenge for me. However, I feel if I keep working on it a little bit at a time, it will become a habit, one that will hopefully change my life for the better. However, she says: 'there's no trust without risk, and there's always new trolls that will try to squat under the new bridge you are building; but if you never try, you'll never get anywhere, and that's scarier than anything.' I tend to agree. 

So, my personal challenge will be to open up my Windows; open up my throat and heart, be empathetic, be authentically vulnerable, and ask for the things I need ---from myself, from my lover, from my friends, from my family, from my neighbors, from strangers --- and being open to the blessings in whatever form they may take, knowing that the asking is unconditional, no strings attached, and the person being asked is welcomed to say no, but just might say yes.

As I'm writing this, a song has popped into my head: 'What's looooove?..It's about us, it's about trust.' It's about tightening the net in some ways, and letting it out in others. It's about using your own set of gifts to make the world better. I'm excited to try, in order to see what happens :)

Thank you Amanda Palmer for writing this book, for being your own beautifilled self, for putting it out there and inviting us all in, to give it a try.