Official Review: The Rational Emotive Train
- Melisa Jane
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Official Review: The Rational Emotive Train
Emotions are very vital in shaping our lives. They help in setting the boundaries and developing survival instincts. However, excessive emotional response towards various stimuli can be damaging. It is, for example, very hard to make rational decisions when you’re too angry, or too happy. For this reason, it is important to take control of our emotions to make sure they work to our advantage. The Rational Emotive Train by Joseph L. Gill is a self-help book that guides the readers on how to take control of their emotions.
This book has 49 pages. It is, however, divided into 11 chapters. While all the chapters are related, they don’t have to be read in any particular order. Although some facts in this book might entertain, for instance, how crying reduces emotional stressfulness, this is an instructional book that isn’t meant to entertain. It is written in the present simple tense.
Like I mentioned before, this book has 11 chapters. However, for the sake of this review, I’ll only summarize the first three chapters. The first chapter, Welcome Aboard, acts as an introductory section. It introduces us to the RET (Rational Emotive Train) and explains how it helps us in making positive adjustments to different emotional situations. The second chapter, RET Commitments, lists some basic practices that help with emotional stability. They include being honorable with words and following one’s instincts. The third chapter lays emphasis on choosing a path of balance, self-regulation, and love.
I enjoyed several things in this book. First, the book contains very colorful pictures of the inside of a train. This made understanding its title very easy and reading it felt like commuting on a train. Although this is an Instructional book, the author includes very interesting facts. I couldn’t help but smile occasionally. It wouldn’t be fair if I failed to mention how well-structured this book is. There were very few words per page. This made reading it very light and enjoyable. I also liked that the chapters are arranged in order, such that the emotions are defined first, their effects explained, and then instructions on how to manage them are given. Since I didn’t find any grammatical errors while reading, this book was adequately edited.
Although this was an enjoyable book, I noticed some areas that need improvements. To begin with, although including pictures improved the book’s visual appeal, it was just the same picture used repeatedly. Using different pictures will make it look even better. I also noticed that the author spent a lot of time and space in defining different emotions, including the obvious ones such as anger and fear, instead of focusing on providing solutions. Even when solutions were provided, they were often very obvious and predictable.
In conclusion, I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. I only deducted one star because of the predictability of the solutions provided. I recommend it to everyone. This is because emotional management is something that everyone should learn. Those who expect unique solutions may be disappointed.
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The Rational Emotive Train
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~ Scott Hughes