Agree with the reviewer C. Taylor--five stars for the content. It's quite brief, as other reviewers have noted, but sometimes extremely valuable wisdom can be found in very small books. I wouldn't pay $9.99 for such a short kindle book by just any author on just any topic.
This one is going back, though. I have a kindle paperwhite ,but it's not available in this format, so I could only read it on my Samsung phone (or my son's kindle fire...but I have no desire to compete with him for it...pick your battles as they say). This and the need to magnify each paragraph on my phone while reading made for an unpleasant/difficult reading experience. Plus I couldn't highlight text, which is a must for me with nonfiction (and especially spiritually-oriented) books. It seems like each paragraph is an image of a paragraph of text rather than actual text. I might re-purchase later if the formatting issue is resolved. Or maybe I'll get the print version someday. It's one I'd like to re-read from time to time.
Dealing with failure on a spiritual level--using it to fuel spiritual growth, self-knowledge, and compassion for self and others--gets almost no press/discussion compared to things like 'how to turn your failure into success' or 'how I turned my failure into success.' I'm not knocking the failure-to-success genre (books, websites, online articles). I have found these helpful many times, and often still do. But at this stage of my life, I derive much more comfort and inspiration from other perspectives on failure/disappointment in oneself/mistakes. One of my favorite spiritual teachers/authors, Father Richard Rohr, says, "We don't come to God by doing it right. Please believe me on this. We come to God by doing it wrong. Any guide of souls knows this to be true. If we come to God by being perfect, no one is going to come to God. This absolutely levels the playing field. Our failures open our hearts of stone and move the rigid mind space toward understanding and patience." Pema Chodron invites us to approach failure differently, and gives concrete advice on how to do so. I also enjoyed the humor she interjected into the commencement speech (the image of a 79 year old Buddhist nun saying “OMG!!” just makes me laugh every time I think of it :-).
The current low average star rating will probably discourage folks less familiar (or unfamiliar) with Pema Chodron's books from buying this one, which is unfortunate. I’ll give it a 5-star rating, but I understand why others have chosen to do otherwise. To the reviewer C. Taylor --thank you for your efforts in contacting Amazon and SoundsTrue. Hope they fix these soon.
For those of you who purchased the kindle version--if you don't know this, then FYI - you can return kindle books within 7 days for a full refund, for any reason. I’ve purchased hundreds of kindle books over the past 5? 6? years and wish I'd known this sooner. I don't return books often, but I’ve had a few cases of near-immediate buyer's remorse over the years. Anyway, this is the first one I'm returning for formatting issues.
[Edit; Regarding my comment about returning e-books for any reason--I should add Amazon might object if you try to use their 7 day return policy as a kindle book lending library. I'm not sure, but I don't do this and don't intend to (it's not fair to Amazon or the author). But if I'm really dissatisfied with a book and decide to return it, I've never had a problem doing so. Note: sometimes you can return these without contacting customer service, but other times, for whatever reason, return isn't one of the options, even if it's been within 7 days. In that case I contact customer service and tell them I want to return it because I didn't like it. They take care of it, no questions asked.]
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