I had really high hopes for this book. The title and back cover sound exactly like something I'm looking for, and I was excited for the perspective that a queer, autistic, polyamorous, and Black & Indigenous author primarily doing creative-type work could bring to the ideas. And as much as I have some reservations about the entire self-help genre, I am still vulnerable to the appeal of the modern iteration of self-help - the kind where instead of teaching you how to do it all, succeed at work, "win" capitalism, etc., they're teaching you how to enjoy life, experience inner peace, and free yourself from the pressures and hurry of capitalism. I know it's basically the same ideas repackaged for a generation that cares more about personal fulfillment than career success, but there's still a part of me that wants a book to tell me how to feel pleasure again. 

Anyway. That's what led me to pick up this book and expect to enjoy it immensely. But reading it is such a strange experience. Sara Elise clearly has some deep, interesting ideas and thoughts on how best to live life. But I couldn't really identify what exactly she was trying to say in this book. 

Sara Elise is very deeply into things my skeptic husband describes as "woo" - energy healing, astrology, higher powers/Universe Energies, manifestation, Earth wisdom, drugs as a method of spiritual healing, that kind of thing. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I get strong "Tumblr witch" vibes. (Admittedly, I myself spent a few years as a Tumblr witch, so even though this added some slightly uncomfortable nostalgia to the book, I at least didn't have any trouble parsing some of the unusual phrases and ideas here.) Though I'm still open to some woo, she is way beyond what most people would consider a reasonable amount of it. It's obviously working really well for her, which is great. But if you're not as far as she is on the skeptic-woo spectrum, you'll probably be weirded out by some of this. 

Although honestly, there's a lot in here to be weirded out by that's not woo. Sara talks about her commitment to being open and vulnerable. And that includes being extremely, uncomfortably open in this book. If feels like the book form of that person who you just met five minutes ago but is already telling you about their childhood trauma, the years when they did as many drugs as they could get their hands on, and how much they're into BDSM. (All things Sara talks about in this book.) There is a place to be open about your personal struggles and/or sexual proclivities in your book, and that can be done really effectively. But since very little of it seemed to connect to an actual point, I ended up with the same very-uncomfortable-but-don't-want-to-be-rude feeling that you get when someone starts talking about how their parent abused them on a first date. I barely know you and I'm trying to find out how to get more abundance and ease in my life - why are you telling me about your BDSM parties and how your father used to beat you? 

I think my biggest criticism of the book is that I am really not sure what it's trying to say. The chapter titles and subheadings have some standard self-help concepts ("Give Yourself Permission to Change," "The Myth of Productivity") and some slightly more interesting concepts ("Invest in Your Pleasure," "Allowing Good Feelings"). I think if you took the headings and used them as an article to write a longform article, you'd get something with more clarity and a more direct point. There's so many different types of content packed into 220 pages that it's hard to combine the variety into something cohesive. 

And when I say "types" of content, I do mean types. This isn't just Sara Elise writing a book about a topic. That part is definitely there, but it's also interspersed with a lot of other things. 

It's possible my fundamental problem here is that I went in thinking this was something it's not. I was expecting and hoping for a how-to - for Sara to give me the ingredients for me to cook up my own life of abundance and ease. But that's not really what this book is about. I think it's more a combination of philosophy and memoir. Sara isn't here to tell you how you can do this for yourself. Instead, she's here to share her philosophy on living, experiencing life and its sensory pleasures, feeling abundance, and adding more ease into existence, and along with that philosophy share a radically open story of how she built this philosophy and uses it in her own life. Despite how critical this review has been, I don't want to be overly critical. Most of my complaints came from my own expectations and desires for a how-to manual. I think if I had known in advance that it was more a work of personal philosophy, I would have looked at it with different eyes and maybe been better able to see what's actually there. Because I do feel like there's something worthwhile here. I just wasn't able to grasp it.