Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness: 101 Inspirational Stories about Finding Your Purpose, Passion, and Joy (Chicken Soup for the Soul (Quality Paper)) Paperback – October 25, 2011

If you are a guy that was in a marriage where you were emotionally and/or verbally abused by your wife, do not buy this book! It felt toxic to me. I was looking for something that promoted healing, forgiveness, and not placing blame on one person or the other but this book does not do that. Ninety percent of the stories are written from the wives perspective (granted they may have been married to Gaston from Beauty and the Beast) but most left me feeling worse for the wear. Even some of the stories from the husbands perspective had a strong tinge of "but it was my fault- I was a jerk." In our current social framework this book fits right in to the narrative that "men are the problem." If are a great guy and was married to Cruella de Vil, this is not the book to help you heal.

I found this book to be very comforting as I went through my grief of losing my husband unexpectedly . Reading the stories of other people who have lost loved ones and have found a new life and hope encouraged me that my life would go on and that I could obtain happiness in spite of my grief.

The order was fine. The book was in excellent condition. But it is a terrible book. The stories are superficial and shallow. The problems were so incredibly trivial and full of self pity i could hardly stand it. For example, “I broke my leg and it ruined my vacation”. I was hoping for something with more substance.

Gave it as a gift to a dear friend who loss a loved one. She loved the book and read it every night was great to give to her when she was going through a loss of a loved one and for anyone who loves reading about messages from heaven anytime!

Another great Chicken Soup book. I saw a lot of Zen thinking in this book. It showed me, once again, that acceptance of a situation, concentration on the present moment, and enjoyment of the good, positive aspects of all circumstances helps us to rise above difficulties. Some of the authors have illnesses or disabilities which would depress many people. Would you see the positive side of Alzheimer's Disease? Could you still be happy if you had macular degeneration and were slowly going blind? Could you have Asperger Syndrome and still want to travel the world knowing that you were directionally-challenged? I don't think I've ever made it through a Chicken Soup book without crying. And this book was no exception. It was so moving. I am a person who tries to look for the silver lining, but I often fall short, and this book has helped me to look for the beauty in all circumstances.

I always say that you can't go wrong with Chicken Soup. I don't think I will ever give one of these books less than four stars. This is another one that is so filled with wisdom and inspiration that I was looking forward each day to reading more stories. Many people had to climb the ladder of success in order to achieve happiness. They had to get more education and training. Others had to downsize. They already had degrees and high-powered careers, but they weren't happy. Sometimes that six-letter word, stress, was slowly killing them. One became a full-time stay-at-home mom and found that PB and jelly with her kids beat luncheons with executives. One went from management to administrative work as an executive secretary and was so much happier. Many people came to realize that managing with less money wasn't a hardship if they had less stress and more peace in their lives.Others had handicaps or illnesses that they needed to accept. One blind woman made such a beautiful life for herself that a cure for her blindness wasn't the end-all and be-all of her existence anymore. As usual, I was truly moved and astounded by so many of these stories. Others were pleasant stories, but they didn't have the power to really move me to a great degree. This is a matter of personal taste I'm sure. But I had to take a star off because of the stories that didn't have the punch that I've learned to expect--the stories that move me to tears or really amaze me with their wisdom and beauty.It's a wonderful book for the bedside--sure to relax you and give you hope. By the way, I know that some people can be turned off by stories about people who leave perfectly good jobs to find a more peaceful existence. People can't always leave their jobs, but I seem to remember that there were some good ideas here for making the most of leisure time or achieving some balance in life. One story is even about the joy of having a box of chocolates all to yourself--loved that one!

It's not that good. I was looking for something more. To me it really doesn't reflect well on what the chicken soup books are all about. If this would have been my first chicken soup book I probably wouldn't purchase any more after this. Luckily I know better. Moving on. Let's try another.

The stories in this volume are from a number of denominations of Christian and Jewish faith and are nicely divided into eleven different sections, including Find Faith Through Nature and Finding Faith through Loss. So anybody reading them could very well find a story or two they can relate to.My favourite story was, You Are On My Road. It's about a school psychologist reaching out to a grieving student, who for the most part seemed like nothing was penetrating, no matter how long the psychologist talked or what she said. However, years later that student came back and told her: "I listened to every word you said that day. Thank you. God put you in the middle of my road, you know,"To which the psychologist replied, "No, I think God put you on mine."Well, and isn't that the truth? God sometimes puts people in our life for a special reason and in time we both realize, that we've have been blessed by the relationship.In exchange for an honest review, Simon and Schuster Canada and Shelton Interactive have provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.