38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
awareness thru spirit, August 18, 2008
This review is from: The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit! (Hardcover)
in this post modern age the complexities of every day life can seem overwhelming and full of obstacles. in the ANSWER IS SIMPLE sonia has written a book that speaks to all us longing for a connection to the divine mystery within us. she writes with such beautiful clarity how as a society we can transform our hearts and minds. she shares how we can access these profound states of insights thru the love and higher truth of our heart. it is clear that that sonia's life work and message is the reconnection to the true embodiment of love. This book is wonderfull! READ IT and carry its truth with you.
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172 of 207 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, September 4, 2008
This review is from: The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit! (Hardcover)
This is Choquette's third book, I believe, just this year alone? That made me suspicious, and it turns out my suspicions were right. There's nothing more irksome than a New Age author who tosses credibility out the window and starts doing hackwork for money, which is exactly what this book is. It's EXTRA disappointing because her other books, particularly on intuition, have been so good.
My first objection is that there's nothing *new* here. Nothing that hasn't been in oh just about any new age title in the last five years. Her 'secrets' are things like breathe, practice gratitude, meditate (well, not really, more on that in a moment), get exercise, etc. Any of that sound new to you?
Second, she doesn't seem to have digested her own terminology. Most of the book she uses the non-denominational 'safe' term 'Spirit' but in the section recommending meditation, she calls it 'talking with God'. To me, talking with god is called 'praying', a nice thing, yes, but quite distinct from meditation. And it makes no sense that in a book that claims that if we only turn to our inner Spirit, all will be well, to suddenly have us talking with something *outside* ourselves--God. Why not 'talking with Spirit?' It would have made much more sense.
Third, she and her family come off as completely obnoxious in her book. Her four year old daughter, who speaks in complete sentences including subordinating conjunctions, harangues her father about his unspiritual behavior. Choquette's mother discourses at length to a waiter in a restaurant about why she doesn't want a certain dessert because 'I love myself.' I'm sure he cared. Choquette, who, no kidding, apparently saved her family from a tornado becuase she wanted to have a family dinner, becomes the ultimate buzzkill at a neighborhood party by refusing to share empathy with others.
That last one really bothered me: She suggests we don't talk about anything bad, only the good. That sounds good on the surface (see my second objection about her not thinking things through), but.... First of all, many of us consider sharing the fact that we're not perfect and our families aren't perfect either immensely empowering--oh, you have a child like that too!? Such sharing builds community spirit and bonding. (Sure it can devolve into a competition of whose life sucks worse, but that doesn't mean that all talking about bad things is to be avoided). Second, Choquette sure looks old enough to remember the bad old days when everyone only talked about the perfectness of life. How wonderful their children were, how smart and how generous and how great. If you're old enough to remember that too, you probably remember that that was an awfully dysfunctional period. Everyone felt that they had to be perfect all the time.
Choquette suggests that following her 'teachings' will make you unpopular, and she does this several times in language that promotes a very disturbing elitism--you, the enlightened, against those other, unevolved miserable, unenlightened losers. That sort of divisiveness is rife in the New Age community right now and I'm frankly disappointed Choquette is feeding into that. I had thought from her previous books that she was a down to earth well grounded real person. (Just watch how people will bash me and this review based on their 'spiritual superiority' and my 'inferiority' if you need extra proof.)
I wanted to like this book. I thought Choquette was an ethical author with integrity and clear vision. I thought wrong. She's turned into another dash-for-the-cash author. Fooled me once, Sonia. Never again.
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33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life saver, August 22, 2008
This review is from: The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit! (Hardcover)
Sonia's books have been my lifeline for the past several years. When my abusive husband died I was lost, but the universe allowed me to find my way to her books and they saved me. Now anytime I feel lost or confused I read her words and they help me find my way back to my center. You cannot go wrong reading anything Sonia has written ... this world is a much sweeter place because she is in it!
Rebecca Lawton
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