Customer Reviews

64 Ways to Beat the Blues

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I picked this book up tonight and was amazed at how these insightful and true to life sayings and delightful drawings captured what having the blues is like for a woman! It is a wonderfully funny book! I am in school to get a doctoral degree in clinical psychology and, frankly, this book scares me- it may put therapists out of business! I intent to buy several copies and send them to friends who have been or are currently experiening the blues. I say, buy it, enjoy it and give it to your favorite counselor or therapist!

I came upon this book purely by accident. I'm so glad I did! Each page is a cartoon drawing, noting a suggested activity for "beating the blues." And each drawing is just such a laugh-- an exaggerated version of what the author suggest you do. You cannot remain in a funk, flipping through these pages.

A hilarious book that sees the humor in depression. Whenever I feel bad about being depressed, I read this book for a laugh.

I noticed greeting cards by the artist Yolanda Nave and loved the sweet and sad sack like characters. I tapped her name in an internet search because I wanted to see more of her drawings. That's when I discovered her "Blues Book." Loooooovvvveeed it! The drawings are so dear and funny that I was giggling out loud! Really! It's amazing how how her character and her writing captures all the facets of trying to beat the blues. It's almot like Charlie Brown, no matter what her little character does something always goes against her optimism.

I am going to buy a few copies of this book and send to friends. Between the humor and the illustrations it's a great lil' book!

This little book deals with the "blues" in such a fun way. The views are so fun and the illustrations are just the best. Order it, read it and laugh THEN order it for your family and friends. Sure can get over "the blues" after enjoying this little read.

I love this book. I came here looking for more by the same author. I've been feeling kind of crappy, and I have had books on ways to cheer up. The other books are full of cutesy things that make me feel like a failure at life for just reading them. This book reminds me that its okay to feel down and there is hope, usually in the form of a laugh or giggle.

Like another review says, I also do not recommend this book for people who are clinically depressed, which to me is something completely different from "having the blues" or feeling "down in the dumps".

This book works best when life seems a bit overwhelming and wish you could sit under a blanket until it sorts itself out.

This innocent-looking cheer-up book needs to come with a big warning label. This is absolutely not a book for a person suffering from a gripping clinical depression. And it could, quite possibly, send a person feeling a little bit down, into a depressive episode - or at the very least, running to their therapist. So reader be warned. This is NOT a cheery little read offering cute little ways to warm the soul and beat the blues. Make no mistake - this is one DARK book, literally capturing the emptiness and hopelessness of depression -- with cartoon-like pictures to imprint those images into your mind, just in case they weren't clear enough.

From the images in the book, I have no doubt that the author of this book understands the horrors of depression all too well. She is very talented and astute. And I'm sure it was probably very therapeutic for her to use her creative energy and capture these images in the form of the book -- one that others can relate too.

The problem perhaps is that a depressed person may relate to those images all too well. These are not pictures of a person who is down and suffering from "the blues." This is the house that has become a disaster zone because one lacks the energy to wash dishes, sort through old magazines, even pay bills or take out trash -- for months. Picking dirty clothes up off the floor to put on, just to drag yourself to work. Where your boss tells you your work is terrible because you really haven't been doing it. The fact that you don't answer your phone or call any friends back, particulary friends who want to share news of job promotions, engagements, or vacations. Of taking anti-depressants and trying to find a therapist who understands and gets you. I'm not quite sure how someone trapped in the middle of these struggles is supposed to find this humorous. Depression is not a pretty picture and this author paints - or rather draws it all too well.

While initially, it may be a bit comforting to identify with these images that depict just what you are feeling and how you are living, the smile on my face froze and began to fall as I turned page after page, waiting to find these "64 ways to beat the blues." For example, one way was something like "Change Scenery" and it showed the dejected, depressed person shift to 4 different positions on a couch in a disastrous apartment, all while looking equally empty and miserable.

The reader keeps WAITING for something, anything, that brings this girl out of depression - doctors, drugs, cleaning up, painting a wall, going to support groups, dropping toxic friends -- all positive things, yet this character remains dejected and depressed. It's terrible and not at all hopeful. Even by something like Tip 57, Give Your Heart to Someone New, when surely this girl is due for something positive, she gives her heart to a guy who expresses interest in her...and at the end of the page....he says he doesn't want her heart and throws it back at her!!

Just a dark depiction of a real, chronic depression. I'm all for laughing at yourself and having a sense of humor about life, but this is really a-tongue-in-cheek glimpse into the life of a very depressed person -- a serious illness of the mind & soul that should not be treated with tongue-in-cheek humor.

Each "positive" way to beat the blues is quickly trampled by a negative outcome. For a truly depressed person trying to fight hopelessness and despair, and try to remain positive, I can't think of a worse vision to have. This book is dangerous because of its title and that appears to be "cute." That's why I picked it up. I felt soo much WORSE after reading this book. Instead of offering hope and sunshine, and warming the heart, it just shows image after image of a sad, empty, dejected person trying so hard to go through the motions, do all the little tips and "ways to beat the blues" offered in so many books, but STILL be met with a negative outcome. It just reinforces the depressed person's belief that Nothing Works.

For someone not depressed, I guess I can partially understand why the character's pessimism and poor luck might make someone smile. But be warned, this book is very, very, very negative. This book left me feeling HORRIBLE. Sometimes dark humor can be strangely comforting. This one wasn't at all to me. Just please, please, please don't buy it as a gift for a friend who has been down. You want to lift her up, not have her see herself in this horrific state of depression and it never getting better, despite all the ways she tries.

For much, much cuter or more uplifting reading, I suggest the cute and harmless "The Blue Day Book", or "14,000 things to be happy about" and especially Iyanla Vanzant's "Until Today."