Member Reviews
To be reviewed...I need to be in a different frame of mind to read this book objectively.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The Netgalley cover and title are incorrect. This is a review for 'Awakening to Health' by Ron Garner.
As a short summary – I would say this book has sound advice on nutrition which many are coming around to. Nevertheless, the details are sketchy - almost as if it were a lazy effort.
The author says while he respects modern medicine, in practice full understanding of how the human body functions & causes for disease is often absent. He goes on to further point out that this is now a powerful industry, and alternate medicine gets no funding is often tarnished as unscientific. The theory of the author is that disease happens when the body does not get nutrition to produce healthy cells and eliminate waste. The body is alkaline by design, while waste products are acidic. The cause of all disease is acidosis, which happens when the lymphatic system led by kidneys (which acts as sewage system) is unable to cope.
The recommendations for detox and diet all come across as sound: start the day with warm water & lemon, eat more raw fruits & veggies, avoid meat & dairy, take saunas, exercise (mild to moderate) daily, periodically cleanse with enemas & herbal cocktails, fast periodically.
This could have been a more valuable book with more detail, reasoning and better writing.
For some reason NetGalley have put a different book image and title to the one I've downloaded from my dashboard and wanted so this review is about "AWAKENING TO HEALTH" by Ron Garner and NOT about "AWAKENING 1" by Joanne Banyer.
If you've read any of my other recent book reviews, you'll already know that I start them all off by saying that every book I read starts off with the full load of 5 stars and that I'm always hopeful that they'll all still be firmly in place by the time I close the back cover. You'll also know that when I drop stars, it's never without giving a reason - they don't just vanish into thin air.
Let's get going with the reading and reviewing.
This book is only 64 Kindle pages long, so in theory I'll be able to get it read and reviewed between carer visits and physio sessions, but we shall have to wait and see I guess.
The first section was good, if repetitive... is this man, who isn't a doctor, just trying to use words to hit a specific word count that his publisher has given him or something?
Section 2 was short and said that we need to take control of the acid in our bodies rather than popping pills from the doc... it already sounds like the entire book is gonna be a repition of "eat right and don't take any notice of doctors and you'll be fine" unfortunately.
Section 3 has started going on about corrosive acids again, so the first star is coming off for saying the same thing in each section so far. I had high hopes for this book, but it's just too repetitive so far.
Yep, section 3 was another short one that just repeated the previous section... this seems to be a man who wants to appear knowledgeable but just doesn't have a clue, so the second star is coming off unfortunately.
Here we go again. For the fourth section, the author is talking about the acid/alkaline balance again, so we're down to 2 stars at 36%.
Guess what the very short and repetitive fifth section talks about? Yep, the acid/alkaline balance again, so at 38% the final star comes off and I've officially given up on it so I'm stopping reading right here. The rest of the book might be a total revolutionary life-saver, but the repetitive nature of the first five sections doesn't give me hope unfortunately.
The first thing that stands out about the book is its likely unintended, but evident anti-doctor stance. Within the introduction, the author states that most doctors do not understand the basic cause of disease and how the human body operates. I am not a doctor, but still find such a bold statement offensive - while it may appeal to some audiences, it is a considerably controversial thing to say.
Within the second part of the book, the author states that autoimmune problems do not exist - again, this is the sort of claim that might significantly reduce the author's credibility.
The following sections of different issues concerning health are very short, eg. fasting only takes up one sentence. A separate book could be written on each of the short sections. Garner's guide predominantly serves as a rough reference guide of things the readers can look into on their own.