I read a really good book recently that was very similar to this. This book was good, but I ended up just comparing it to the other book, which I ultimately just liked a little bit better.

I give this book 3.5 stars. I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. And honestly, I had trouble wading through this book. I'm kind of on a kick of reading books about "happiness" and I even took a free course from Yale on the topic. A lot of the material in this realm tends to be easy-reads, almost dumbed down on times. This book was more cerebral and I had to reread passages a couple times to understand them properly. I would say I'm on average reader- I blog posts and tomes, and everything in between but nothing too scholarly. This book bordered on too smart for me.

At the end of the book, the author says that in writing this book he used "science, Buddhist psychology, clinical observations and the Buddhist three marks of existence", the latter of which we learn about early on. I fared best when reading his personal observations of patients then with the in-depth mindfulness discussions. Full disclosure, I also didn't do any of the exercises in the book, of which there are many. However, I did make note of a few that I would like to put into practice at some point. The exercises were all pretty simple to do and if you are looking for that sort of thing, you may really like this book.

There is a lot of important content in this book, which is why I lean towards the 4 star review instead of 3 stars. Some of the sentences made me pause and think, and I was able to apply what the author was saying to a current problem I am having right now that I'm having trouble resolving. I do appreciate the obvious amount of time that the author put into this work and I took away a lot from it. It's just that, for me, the book didn't flow.

#FiveHurdlesToHappiness #NetGalley #Mindfulness

Mitch illustrates how focus in happiness with spiritual, scientific and personal touch. I liked the way he introduces the subject and how well documented is the book.