'How to be Happy in an Unhappy world' by Bruce Peterson

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BookWorm07
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Official Review: How To Be Happy, In a Unhappy World

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[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "How To Be Happy, In a Unhappy World" by Bruce Peterson.]
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‘How to be happy in an unhappy world’ by Sri Brewster Peterson (as he calls himself) is, as the name suggests, a fairly straightforward self help book. Bruce Peterson does not spin us a story on how he achieved happiness, nor does his book reveal any secrets that is privy only to a few. He has just penned down what most men and women already know and yet seldom actually put to practice.

He gives us ten chapters, each dedicated to one of his ten rules or guidelines to a better life today as well as tomorrow.

The book, however, isn't the one you wanna go to if you are looking something philosophical or wordy. It is short, barely thirty pages, and in the form of bullet points and short paragraphs.

The content too isn't anything new or mind blowing. It is something that we all know and have heard or read about over and over again; that makes the book feel boring and repetitive to an extent. I also felt that the book was more of a parenting guide than a guide to happiness, what with all the references to children.

It is also just a compilation of the author’s own opinion of being happy rather than a hard and fast rule book that everyone has to follow. There are also one or two instances where the author contradicts himself. For example, “To be happy you must first have the courage to really find out what makes you happy and not because you are just doing it to please someone else... Which by the way is the number one reason of happiness for most of us... being of service to someone else…

While the simplicity of the book, especially with regard to not using heavy vocabulary and being very precise and to the point is hugely advantageous; it is also filled with loads of grammatical errors. It is riddled with typos, dreadful grammar and badly constructed sentences which put me off the book almost immediately. It definitely needs to be proof read better before hitting the markets. With its size being just around thirty pages, proof reading for simple grammar shouldn’t have been very difficult.

All in all, the book is mediocre motivational book that would typically only need you to only spare a few minutes of your time. The absence of an original or interesting narration, however, fails to keep the readers interested or motivated.

I rate the book 1 out of 4 stars.

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