Review of A Substantial Career
Posted: 17 Apr 2025, 11:10
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "A Substantial Career" by Laurel Gurnsey.]
I think A Substantial Career by Laurel Gurnsey was an ok book. Even though it wasn’t so short, I was able to read it in almost one sitting. I will tell you why. It had heart.
Yes, it had heart. Teaching must be one of the most complicated professions out there; it’s not easy to deal with so many students over the course of many years, but you can tell when reading this book that the author absolutely loved it and it was what they were meant to do with their life and that they had a lot of passion for teaching. By the end of the book, you can see how much it meant to the author to be a teacher for so many years and all the connections they made with their students that continued in many cases until the students were adults with careers of their own.
The book is mostly made of diary entries that the author kept during their last year of teaching with additional present-day notes. This is where I started having issues with the book. It dragged on too much. I understand that is how diary entries are supposed to work, but I think more concise content or better editing would have helped to engage better with the book, as day-to-day narrations of just their work as a teacher could get tiresome. That is the other thing; I didn’t feel the book had anything to offer beyond the recollections of the author’s work as a teacher and their love for the job. But I won’t read too much into that, as this is obviously a very personal project, and like I said, I can see the heart that the author put into it.
I’m giving the book 3 out of 5 stars. I’m deducting the first one because of what I said before about the book dragging on. The second one because I found several grammar errors, and here is where better editing could have also helped the book. But I would still recommend this book, especially to people who are doubting if they should become teachers so they can see how fulfilling it can be.
******
A Substantial Career
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
I think A Substantial Career by Laurel Gurnsey was an ok book. Even though it wasn’t so short, I was able to read it in almost one sitting. I will tell you why. It had heart.
Yes, it had heart. Teaching must be one of the most complicated professions out there; it’s not easy to deal with so many students over the course of many years, but you can tell when reading this book that the author absolutely loved it and it was what they were meant to do with their life and that they had a lot of passion for teaching. By the end of the book, you can see how much it meant to the author to be a teacher for so many years and all the connections they made with their students that continued in many cases until the students were adults with careers of their own.
The book is mostly made of diary entries that the author kept during their last year of teaching with additional present-day notes. This is where I started having issues with the book. It dragged on too much. I understand that is how diary entries are supposed to work, but I think more concise content or better editing would have helped to engage better with the book, as day-to-day narrations of just their work as a teacher could get tiresome. That is the other thing; I didn’t feel the book had anything to offer beyond the recollections of the author’s work as a teacher and their love for the job. But I won’t read too much into that, as this is obviously a very personal project, and like I said, I can see the heart that the author put into it.
I’m giving the book 3 out of 5 stars. I’m deducting the first one because of what I said before about the book dragging on. The second one because I found several grammar errors, and here is where better editing could have also helped the book. But I would still recommend this book, especially to people who are doubting if they should become teachers so they can see how fulfilling it can be.
******
A Substantial Career
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon