Review of Beneath the Muscle
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Macha Marumo Mphela
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Review of Beneath the Muscle
[Following is a volunteer review of "Beneath the Muscle" by Lauren Powers.]
How many people were able to spend zero days in class during their senior year in school, extensively touring with a skateboarding team, and were still able to become valedictorian of their class? I never came across one till I read Beneath the Muscle. This is one of the many life stories to be found in this little book, and they are all incredible. Lauren Powers may be a physically astonishing woman, but it's her life that is more jaw dropping. She lets us peek into her life in an honest, vulnerable way that it's almost impossible to not feel like you know her intimately. She is a woman of commanding presence and has a big personality. She has never met a camera she didn’t like, after all. At least that's what she says. This is ultimately a book that was written by someone with a passion for life (she rides a Harley Davidson for heaven's sake), and an equal passion of helping others navigate its trickiness. She has lived an extraordinary life (even making a cameo in a blockbuster music video) and that is used smartly as the biggest draw of the book.
The book is written in a simple, plain language that it kind of feels like the author is having a sit-down conversation with us the readers. I loved that. I spend more time enjoying the chapters and less rummaging through the dictionary this way. It's not pretentious and doesn't try too hard to seem more sophisticated than it is. It's also a short read, about 170 pages long. Authors sometimes fall in the trap of wanting to write more than they need to, resulting in unnecessarily long reads that go nowhere. This book doesn't suffer from that. It's concise and achieves what it was intended to.
The main thing I can critique about the book is that in the grand scheme of things, the author offers no new, ground-breaking insights into the secrets of unlocking our greatest potential. As a motivational piece, it works, but it often reads as any self help book on the market. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you are well read in this field of literature this might not excite you at all. Or perhaps it's a matter of every successful person having had almost identical revelations in their grand awakenings and life mastery? And while I enjoyed its simplicity, a little bit of artistic flair would have been appreciated to give the writing some texture and a bit of flavour. But this isn't a deal breaker. I just find that that helps set writers apart from the rest if they have a unique writing style.
3 out of 4 stars seems like an adequate rating for what's on offer here. The book is solid, well edited, bar for a mistake or two, and it serves its purpose. Lauren Powers does a great job delivering her message and letting us into her life, sharing with us her strengths and weaknesses, and making suggestions on how to circumnavigate our struggles. It's refreshing to view life so honestly from someone who seems to have it all figured out, and realise that our human experiences are essentially similar. We suffer the same insecurities, fears, and doubts, the difference is how we react to them. And the author has more than one great advice to dish out on how to be successful in our endeavours.
I think anyone who is stuck in life, especially someone in their late thirties or middle-ages looking for motivational literature, can definitely add this to their collection. There are many lessons to be drawn here. There are life moments and epiphanies Lauren Powers lets us see, that may spark something in any of us so we reach our own awakenings and power through obstacles to see better days.
******
Beneath the Muscle
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
How many people were able to spend zero days in class during their senior year in school, extensively touring with a skateboarding team, and were still able to become valedictorian of their class? I never came across one till I read Beneath the Muscle. This is one of the many life stories to be found in this little book, and they are all incredible. Lauren Powers may be a physically astonishing woman, but it's her life that is more jaw dropping. She lets us peek into her life in an honest, vulnerable way that it's almost impossible to not feel like you know her intimately. She is a woman of commanding presence and has a big personality. She has never met a camera she didn’t like, after all. At least that's what she says. This is ultimately a book that was written by someone with a passion for life (she rides a Harley Davidson for heaven's sake), and an equal passion of helping others navigate its trickiness. She has lived an extraordinary life (even making a cameo in a blockbuster music video) and that is used smartly as the biggest draw of the book.
The book is written in a simple, plain language that it kind of feels like the author is having a sit-down conversation with us the readers. I loved that. I spend more time enjoying the chapters and less rummaging through the dictionary this way. It's not pretentious and doesn't try too hard to seem more sophisticated than it is. It's also a short read, about 170 pages long. Authors sometimes fall in the trap of wanting to write more than they need to, resulting in unnecessarily long reads that go nowhere. This book doesn't suffer from that. It's concise and achieves what it was intended to.
The main thing I can critique about the book is that in the grand scheme of things, the author offers no new, ground-breaking insights into the secrets of unlocking our greatest potential. As a motivational piece, it works, but it often reads as any self help book on the market. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you are well read in this field of literature this might not excite you at all. Or perhaps it's a matter of every successful person having had almost identical revelations in their grand awakenings and life mastery? And while I enjoyed its simplicity, a little bit of artistic flair would have been appreciated to give the writing some texture and a bit of flavour. But this isn't a deal breaker. I just find that that helps set writers apart from the rest if they have a unique writing style.
3 out of 4 stars seems like an adequate rating for what's on offer here. The book is solid, well edited, bar for a mistake or two, and it serves its purpose. Lauren Powers does a great job delivering her message and letting us into her life, sharing with us her strengths and weaknesses, and making suggestions on how to circumnavigate our struggles. It's refreshing to view life so honestly from someone who seems to have it all figured out, and realise that our human experiences are essentially similar. We suffer the same insecurities, fears, and doubts, the difference is how we react to them. And the author has more than one great advice to dish out on how to be successful in our endeavours.
I think anyone who is stuck in life, especially someone in their late thirties or middle-ages looking for motivational literature, can definitely add this to their collection. There are many lessons to be drawn here. There are life moments and epiphanies Lauren Powers lets us see, that may spark something in any of us so we reach our own awakenings and power through obstacles to see better days.
******
Beneath the Muscle
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Advanced Lotto Rotation System by Joseph Z Vlasic
