Book Review: Finding My Badass Self

[sg_popup id=”1″ event=”onload”][/sg_popup] Finding My Badass Self: A Year of Truths and Dares

I was given an ‘advance reader copy’ of “Finding My Badass Self: A Year of Truths and Dares” by Sherry Stanfa-Stanley in exchange for an honest review. I do this kind of thing often, mostly because my desire for free books outweighs my desire for, say, oxygen, and, to be honest, more often than not I am disappointed.
Not so here.

The premise is just delightful – Sherry turns 52 and has a bit of a midlife crisis. Her life is peaceful and ordinary, she’s an empty-nester with a solid job she likes. There’s nothing wrong with her life, but it is unsatisfying, somehow. So she sets out to make her life a little less peaceful and more extraordinary. She ‘dares’ herself to do something that pushes her boundaries once a week during her 52nd year. She calls it the 52/52 project. This book is a description of her adventures. 52 chapters for 52 weeks containing 52 adventures in her 52nd year. Each chapter could stand independently as a story, but they work better as a unit.

The adventures range from the truly daring to the relatively mild, and demonstrate a genuine creativity. Her writing style is light and breezy. It feels more like sitting down with a friend over a glass of wine (or a bloody Mary) and hearing her stories than reading a book. Her style is a good bit like mine, I think. If you like my books and my blog, odds are you will like this book. In fact, one of her adventures is a ghost tour. Around the time I was reading this book, but before I got to that chapter, I went on my own ghost tour and wrote about it. Sherry and I used almost exactly the same joke in the closing line, completely independent of each other.

Sherry is a better writer than me, however, in that what she writes has a point and actually makes you think a little. I find myself thinking about her as opportunities present themselves and thinking about the value of pushing one’s own comfortable boundaries.

Highly, highly, highly recommend. To read more, click the handy-dandy Amazon link below.