Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment [Paperback]

Suzanne Morrison (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 16, 2011

What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to get in touch with her spiritual side? Not what you’d expect…
 
When Suzanne Morrison decides to travel to Bali for a two-month yoga retreat, she wants nothing more than to be transformed from a twenty-five-year-old with a crippling fear of death into her enchanting yoga teacher, Indra—a woman who seems to have found it all: love, self, and God.
 
But things don’t go quite as expected. Once in Bali, she finds that her beloved yoga teacher and all of her yogamates wake up every morning to drink a large, steaming mug…of their own urine. Sugar is a mortal sin. Spirits inhabit kitchen appliances. And the more she tries to find her higher self, the more she faces her cynical, egomaniacal, cigarette-, wine-, and chocolate-craving lower self.
 
Yoga Bitch chronicles Suzanne’s hilarious adventures and misadventures as an aspiring yogi who might be just a bit too skeptical to drink the Kool-Aid. But along the way she discovers that no spiritual effort is wasted; even if her yoga retreat doesn’t turn her into the gorgeously calm, wise believer she hopes it will, it does plant seeds that continue to blossom in surprising ways over the next decade of her life.
suzannemorrison.blogspot.com

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Yoga Bitch is an unabashedly romantic book, in the very best way--like watching your funniest, most sardonic friend realize that she's head-over-heels in love." --Claire Dederer, Author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Poses

"A smart, funny, and keenly observed travelogue of a modern yogini’s quest for awakening. Yoga Bitch flows like a quirky vinyasa, with each pose just twisted enough to be hilarious." --Anne Cushman, author of Enlightenment for Idiots: A Novel

"Suzanne Morrison has been through the yoga wars, she has the literal scars to prove it, and she's produced a hilarious and thoughtful memoir."--Neal Pollack, author of Stretch

“Brings the higher path down to Earth with refreshing honesty.”--Kirkus Reviews

“Thoughtful, honest, and hilarious.”—Publishers Weekly 

“I love this book. In an era of so much truth telling and blogging and reality shows we forget how well true stories can be told, when they’re in the right hands. Yoga Bitch has sucked me in and made me laugh and made me think about my own spiritual fucked-up state. You had me at 'Do they make you eat your own poop.'" – Lauren Weedman, Author of A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body and former Daily Show correspondent

“Morrison is unflinchingly honest, poking easy fun at herself, her companions, and her surroundings…The lessons from Bali ultimately led her to stop pursuing the life she was supposed to want and start leading the one that nourishes her.” –Patty Wetli, Booklist
 
“Writer/performer Morrison offers a totally different take on the yoga experience…she candidly discusses her issues with meditation, exercise, and relationships.” –Library Journal 

"Yoga Bitch had me hooked. It's a hilarious read by an author who isn't afraid to delve into the messy innards of yoga culture." -Jenny Rough, Whole Life Times

"Morrison's funny riff on yoga and perspective." - Dan Kois, New York Magazine

"[Morrison's] funny and honest discussion about her yogic journey is riveting and revolting, raw and fresh, and immensely enjoyable." -Nancy Alder, Elephant Journal

"Wickedly entertaining yet tragically honest." -Chatelaine.com
 
"Had me laughing out loud at the author’s irreverent commentary by the second page, and, ultimately unable to put the book down until a very un-yogic early morning hour [...] I couldn’t recommend Yoga Bitch more highly." -- Jay Winston, Elephant Journal
 
"Morrison offers a fresh and new voice in the yoga memoirs genre that is one part deeply exploratory and another giggle-inducing." -- Nancy Alder, Yoga Dork
 
“Suzanne Morrison recounts her reformative journey at a two-month yoga retreat in Bali with a sense of humor so wicked it would even make Bikram sweat a little.” –Dorothy Robinson, Metro
 
“Morrison is a funny and engaging writer, at once sincere about her spiritual aspirations and aware of all the clichés they entail.” --Laura Moser, Slate.com

“[YOGA BITCH] is a hilarious, thoughtful and only occasionally profane account of one young woman facing mortality and bad habits head on […]Morrison is whip-smart and irreverent.” - Amy Scribner, Bookpage. 
 

About the Author

A writer and solo performer currently living in Seattle, SUZANNE MORRISON has a one-woman show, Yoga Bitch, which has been called "Ambitious, ballsy, and hilarious" by Seattle Weekly and "New Age Nirvana" by Time Out London. The show has played to sold-out houses in New York City, Maui, Seattle, Memphis, London, and Oxford. Her work has been covered in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Weekly, and in blogs such as yogajournal.com and seattlest. You can find Suzanne at Huffington Post and at www.suzanne-morrison.com, where she writes about absolutely everything she's reading, writing, and rehearsing.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Original edition (August 16, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307717445
• ISBN-13: 978-0307717443
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Journey more important than the destination. SPOILER December 29, 2011

By Luciana

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I admit that I am not entirely sure what I was expecting out of this book. Maybe I expected too much, who knows. The cover was intriguing, and the first few pages - promising. I will say that I did enjoy the book; it's light, funny, and surprisingly well written for this subject matter. It made me laugh out loud on many moments, and for this reason alone, I heartily recommend it...

However, I'm not sure that there was a lot of introspection on the author's part. It seems to me that she had a minor life crisis, and needed to get out. That's fine, we've all been there. Yet to me she merely replaced one obsession (the boyfriend) with another - yoga, only to replace it all with another boyfriend. Most of the time, I feel she was winging the whole experience, rather than truthfully transcending. I DO recognize the possibility that in the end Yoga does absolutely nothing for the spirit, and that the author is still in process of discovering herself. I just didn't see the growth in her. I don't think she really tried to "conquer skepticism, cynicism, and cigarettes..." I think she just quit in favor of being who she is, faults and all - and that is totally fine.

Accepting yourself, faults and all is a total win -- so why the 3 stars?

Mainly because it ended with a somewhat cliche conclusion - get a man. Even her friend got one in the end. The book reminds me of "Eat, Pray, Love", a lot of soul searching and traveling to absolutely awesome destinations, only to discover the answer was in love. Relationships are GREAT, people - but IT IS very cliche when it comes to a story's ending. It's very...Sex in the City - smart, talented women who don't feel complete until prince charming comes along with all the answers.

It's been there done that. Nevertheless, the journey is truly better than the destination. It was a great read. I liked it for its sincerity, its unapologetic look at the world and religion, and perhaps even a truthful opinion that yoga ain't all it's cut out to be.

I just wish it had a better more original ending, that's all.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect!!! Sweet and sincere yet sarcastic and funny September 11, 2011

By DanaLK

Format:Paperback

I loved this book! I loved it enough to compare it to Eat Love Pray, which was lifeline for me after going through my own divorce and trying to rediscover my own spirituality. I think many readers will identify with this book; people who are attracted to yoga are often on similar journeys.

Yoga Bitch is a wonderful travel-spiritual quest story. Suzanne Morrison is funny, intelligent and very self-aware. She describes her quest in a very sincere and earnest manner, yet she is no fool. She's smart enough to see hypocrisy when it's in front of her. Her commentary is absolutely hysterical--I laughed out loud multiple times.

What I particularly enjoyed is that she's very self-aware. In contrast to Eat Love Pray, she doesn't overly romanticize Bali. She see poverty, sexism, and hypocrisy for what it is and she's not afraid to cry "bull----". In addition while she was struggling along her personal journey, she was self-aware enough to basically say: "Poor me, right??? Here I am in gorgeous Bali on a yoga retreat for 2 months and I'm unhappy. Boo hoo." I loved Eat Love Pray, but I think Elizabeth Gilbert got too wrapped up in her own story sometimes.

All in all, this story was extremely engaging. I find that I want to know more about Suzanne's story. I want to know if she finds "happily ever after"? Is she still in love? Does she ever resolve her spiritual questions? This book definitely goes on my "read once a read" shelf and I anxiously await a second novel!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Utterly Readable October 20, 2011

By Catherine F. Weiss

Format:Paperback

I grew up in the same town as Suzanne Morrison; went to the same high school, and even the same church I think, so it was really interesting for me reading her memoir. I too am an actor and writer, and I've recently found my way back to a yoga practice, so I identified with many aspects of her journey. Yoga Bitch read sort of like a self-help manual for me. Suzanne's journey, and the lessons she has learned acted kind of like signposts for me. "Watch out for this one, Catherine, this one could be big for you."

I breezed through this book-it was fun to read. More importantly though, it's an example of someone looking back at her experiences with wit and humility, fearlessly searching for the lesson. We live in a world lacking in self-awareness. I don't think that most people have the courage to look at their path and ask if they're on the right one. No one wants to question their integrity or motives or whether they acted like the best version of themselves. Suzanne does that with courage. It's inspiring.