The practice of gratitude is a key to living an authentic and contended life and also invaluable to those in recovery from various addictions. I discovered A Network for Grateful Living and Gratefulness.org earlier this year and it is a benefit to starting or ending my day on the right note. This book will be welcome addition to the collection on this topic. Thanks for an early look.

During this pandemic I feel like everyone is going to the self help section. This book is a must read. Things will not get any easier and I plan on using this book again

Wake up Grateful always!

This reminder is especially important if you are when we are stuck quarantined in the pandemic. To remind ourselves to be grateful. I thank netgalley for this book

Converting your distress to Thank you is really important to survive in this tough world. After having gone through a bad phase in my life, i can very well relate to the book.

Really helps for people who feels let down in life daily.

Highly recommended to get a good happy body, mind and soul.

I feel like this is such a timely book! I enjoyed reading the author’s story, she is inspirational. I found the suggestions helpful and I plan to continue building on my gratitude practice.

With all of the problems that this year has brought, I was looking for something to help put life in perspective and be grateful for all that I still have. This book was a good reminder to be grateful everyday, even for the smallest things. At times it was a little long winded, but I enjoyed it and it was a bright spot in my day.

This is a fantastic must-read book! With all of the craziness and pessimism in the world, it is so important to be grateful for the blessings that we do have. This book is full of tips and tricks to do that as well as exercises that help you utilize them. Do the activities. Mark your favorite passages. Remember to be grateful. If you do that, you will find you are more blessed than you realized and be happier.

A great book for anyone struggling, which seems to be a lot of people considering the world today. I love the topic of self-help, especially mindfulness and gratitude. I'm currently in counseling and the topic of being mindful and present comes up a lot. In fact, it has been part of my homework the last two weeks. The book emphasizes how to train your brain to see the good in each moment. I appreciate that the author put her own personal experience with cancer in her book. It made the book feel more real. Overall the book is very inspiring and shows us how to not take life for granted. Highly recommend.

I've been working on feeling more gratitude for the last few years so was keen to read this book to develop my practice. However. I could not get into the book. I gave up up after ready 25% because it was feeling like a chore.

I've read a number of books on this topic, and this was a good addition to the field. Useful prompts and exercises complimented the book overall. It's easy to read this at your own pace. The author is vulnerable in sharing about herself, which does add to the relatability. She makes the distinction between "gratitude" and "grateful living." There is definitely a religious tone to the book, which may appeal to some but not others.

This easily accessible book is written from the heart of the author who experienced a life threatening illness and you can feel her passion for her subject on every page. She clearly shows what she has discovered about the benefits of living a grateful life and she sets out to encourage the reader to think about themselves and how they respond to the world around them. Something which is more vital than ever in the current unsettled world we find ourselves. It is full of questions which make you stop and think and simple but highly effective exercises which just turn life towards a more grateful slant and wow - what a difference that can make. A must read book and one which has so much to teach us all.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

WAKE UP GRATEFUL is a must-read! I highlighted so many passages in this self-help book and I really think it will have a meaningful and lasting impact on countless readers. I enjoyed the narrative, anecdotes, prompts, and exercises and look forward to implementing Nelson's wise suggestions. Some inspirational books are repetitive. That's one of my pet peeves about this genre, when a book could have been a couple blog posts. However, I felt like this book was the right length. A very insightful read.

This is the kind of book that struggling people are looking for! Especially now, when we're getting dragged around by current events, we're looking for some help in feeling better, whether its for just an attitude check or if you're feeling yourself pulled down into the spiral of depression. The premise of this book is to re-wire your brain to make gratitude a more automatic lifestyle, and that's way better than starting from zero and having to convince yourself of gratitude every day. This book gives you a practice for gratitude training, and author gives lots of real-life examples for overcoming through gratitude.

During the COVID pandemic, I’ve tried to count my blessings more. So when I found Kristi Nelson’s book on NetGalley, I snatched it up. Executive director of A Network for Grateful Living, she turned to thankfulness to survive stage four cancer at 33. In WAKE UP GRATEFUL, she shares transformative techniques to go from “woe is me” to “thank you.” It’s a big spiritual shift that impacts mind, body and soul. I’m starting right now to follow Kristi’s example. Read this book and I bet you will too!

5 of 5 Stars

Pub Date 24 Nov 2020

Thanks to the author, Storey Publishing and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#WakeUpGrateful #NetGalley

Gratitude is a practise everyone should have. It increases happiness as well as your health and manifestation. This book gives you a deep explanation as to how important it is to simply take a moment every day to be grateful. I highly recommend it. This is probably the most important step to start with in self-development.

A simple guide that really gets you thinking about what is important - especially useful at this time when we have plenty of time for reflection.

Wake Up Grateful by Kristi Nelson
Book Review by Dawn Thomas

240 Pages
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Release Date: November 24, 2020

Self-Help, Health, Mind & Body

The subtitle, “The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted” is reason alone to read this book. It is organized into two parts:

Part 1: From Gratitude to Grateful Living explains the principles of grateful living. This also includes the five guiding principles.
Part 2: Grateful Living in the Real World focuses on how to bring grateful living into your life.

The author talks about being diagnosed with cancer at age 33 and how important it was for her to be grateful every day. As time went on and life seemed to turn into routine, gratitude took a backseat until she met Brother David. He survived World War II and tells about his experience in bomb shelters waiting for the end to come. Kristi took a job as Executive Director for A Network for Grateful Living and found Brother David was part of the interview process. It was serendipity.

The depth of the writing is wonderful and really makes you reflect. Because the author includes her own experience makes the book feel more personal. She describes her illness and “fever of unknown origin” diagnosis (which I have been given too) and the extensive testing to her ultimate diagnosis. Her message is to be grateful for each moment and don’t take anything for granted. Last year I lost a friend to lung cancer. It was aggressive and she was gone within a year of diagnosis. I traveled to visit her twice during that year and know how grateful I was to spend the time with her.

The book is written so that a reader can open it to any page and receive a little wisdom in the form of a quote or question. The formula the author uses is from Brother David’s practice of Stop, Look, Go. This is a way to be alert and notice things happening around you. I was unaware there was the difference between gratitude and gratefulness. The definitions make the difference so clear. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Nothing particularly new or innovative for this style of book. Felt like Nelson was trying to rewrite 'The Secret'. I can see that this might be a decent entry point for readers who are new to this concept, but for seasoned readers of self help and this genre of literature this is old hat.

Author Kristi Nelson discusses grateful living and the difference between this and mere gratitude, which she describes as a more fleeting experience. I'm certainly behind the whole gratitude thing, but this book didn't "spark" for me. It felt repetitive at times, with the author emphasizing the same points - be grateful, appreciate what's right in front of you. Got it ;)

I thought this book was brilliant! It came into my life at a point where I very much needed it and the ideas behind it have become a part of my everyday life. Such a wonderful gift to pass on to those you love!

The formatting of this kindle book made the reading difficult.

As for the content. Good self help but well worn road.