Since this book is all about yoga and I'm a yogi and yoga instructor, I enjoyed reading it. I could identify with different parts of the memoir and liked her relationship with yoga.

Sasha had a weird Mom. According to her at least! She doesn’t know how to make braids or cook and is busy studying Sanskrit, being macrobiotic and finding enlightenment in an ashram. So different from the other Moms in the middle of the Bible belt where their family lived.

Her mother taught her yoga, but when her Mom passed away she stopped the practice. Then a running injury brought her back to yoga. And there she grieved her Mom and discovered so much more of herself. Through yoga, she realized how she was much more like her Mom than she realized. She discovered the mind, heart and body connection of yoga.

Another memoir, this year and I was glad that I read it. Sasha’s writing is humorous and heartfelt.

The mother daughter bond is a subject close to my heart as I often struggle to understand my relationship with my Mom, especially after her passing.

I really wanted to love this book.

The title alone made me want to sit with this book and dig in.

Unfortunately, I felt the writing style was so boring. Yes, this subject matter isn't the most uplifting in many ways, but wow, the writing almost put me to sleep.

Thank you HCI Books and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

I am so glad to have had the opportunity to read this memoir about mothers, daughters, yoga and death coming far too early. There were many sentences I highlighted as I was reading, as I loved the way the author, Sasha, described things so beautifully. I enjoyed reading about Sasha’s journey, her deep unconditional love of her mother and the way she untangles and comes to understand their relationship as she matures. I loved the way yoga weaved through the book, as of course it does their lives.

I like yoga and I am trying to learn more about it. I also like memoirs. So when I saw Namaste the Hard Way on NetGalley, I jumped on the opportunity to request it.

Sasha Brown-Worsham has organized her books as a series of essays that build an overarching exploration of her path with yoga. As a child, she found her mother’s yoga practice (at a time when it wasn’t as popular as it is today) to be weird and embarrassing. Aside from that, all her healthy mind/body choices and vegetarian lifestyle didn’t excuse her from dying of cancer somewhat quickly. Sasha reflects on particular points throughout her childhood and teen years and how they affected her, as well as affected her relationship with her mother.

As an adult Sasha came to yoga in her own way. Although she practices in a slightly different way from her mother, yoga has become a core part of Sasha’s life despite her initial disdain.

The essays are organized into sections that follow the order of a practice: centering, breathing, connecting, saluting, flowing, balancing, strengthening, surrendering, integrating, and rebirthing. This structure made a lot of sense for moving through Sasha’s stories. It also taught me that these were all actual parts of a yoga practice. My first yoga practice after finishing this book felt so much deeper because I had a better understanding.

I plan to read this book a second time. Knowing how it helped me with my own understanding of yoga, I want to revisit it from the beginning to see what else I might recognize that I didn’t on first passing. I may even buy myself the paperback version even though I have an advanced read ebook copy.

I recommend this book for readers who like memoir (whether or not you like yoga), as well as for those who maybe aren’t used to memoir but do love yoga.

Disclaimer: I received an advance-read copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The author did an amazing job of conveying the difficult journey she was on to rediscover yoga after losing her mom at the age of 16 and suffering an injury and being unable to complete her typical workouts. She had avoided her mother's beloved yoga before this and did a beautiful job of allowing the reader to empathize with her.

This is a story of mothers and daughters, of following your own path or going along with the crowd. The author Sasha, Sara shares what it was like for her as a young girl wanting to be part of the popular crowd and having a mom who doesn’t seem to care about the opinions of others. I liked the realness of the mom and how Sasha grew to appreciate her, becoming more like her mom than she ever thought she would.

Sasha’s story is interesting, at times sad and others funny. I thoroughly enjoyed this moving account of a daughter’s journey.

I was interested in this memoir because my sisters-in-law are both very into alternative medicine and yoga and I am not interested in that sort of thing at all. It was a well-written peek into growing up in an unusual family in a very boring town and how that informed her as an adult who finds herself turning to the same thing she once eschewed.

NAMASTE THE HARD WAY recounts Sasha Brown-Worsham’s story of rediscovering through yoga the mother she lost to cancer when she was 16. Sasha’s yoga-and macrobiotics-loving mom was always the odd one out in conservative Southwest Ohio where the family lived, and Sasha found herself wanting to run ... literally ... as far away as she could from her ashram-minded parent. But it wasn’t until she had a running injury that she turned to yoga and there on the mat, found she had more in common with her mother than she ever thought. In sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious but always eloquent language, she describes her deep healing from grief and the soul-fulfilling connection with her mother across time. Highly recommended!

Pub Date 04 Sep 2018

Thanks to HCI Books and

#NamasteTheHardWay #NetGalley

A little disjointed at times, but overall a compelling tale of the mother/daughter bond intersecting at the yoga mat. A touching exploration of the ties that bind and sometimes constrain and the ultimate freedom found in the practice of yoga.

I loved this story. I found it hard to put down. This story was so relatable to me. I will recommend this book to everyone I know.

This is a beautiful book. I couldn't put it down. It tells the journey of the author as she tries to run from the practices of her mother. After her mother's death and a knee injury she incurs while running, literally, she finds herself doing the yoga practices she's tried hard not to do.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of it.