In A Simply Healthy Life, Caroline shows you how to envision what it would look like for you to feel genuinely happy and healthy. This book really easy to read and give step to have a simply healthy life.

The premise of this book greatly appealed to me, as I've lately been focused on simplifying my life, and I hadn't yet read any titles written from a Christian viewpoint. While marketed as comprehensive, I'd consider this book more of a "survey". It covers a LOT of topics, and offers MANY things to consider, but ... it stays in the shallows. I'd recommend this book for the person who feels overwhelmed and cannot figure out where to start. Flipping through the chapters might trigger that "AHA!" moment -- identifying where to start the journey.

With that said, this book overwhelmed me. It went too many directions, and left me feeling charged and almost frenetic. Not really a good thing for a book focused on simple, peaceful living.

I'd also say that I am not the target audience for this book. As someone not in a relationship, not pursuing a relationship, and also not a parent ... well ... much of this book was not applicable. The author also makes a point of mentioning that she is an Enneagram 7 and an ENFJ. While there is not a lot of time spent overtly on extroversion, there is definitely an extrovert's lens on many of the recommendations throughout the relationship-focused chapters. At one point, this introvert started to feel a bit "less than", before reminding myself that different approaches to life are not necessarily better/worse -- they're simply ... different.

So, I'd cautiously recommend this book as a reference title for a young family (or a couple with plans to have a family in the future), but would recommend only considering it a jumping-off point. Thank you, author and publisher, for the complimentary copy of the title.

A Simply Healthy Life was a great book to start off January with! It covered a lot of different topics for healthy living such as: good habits, sleeping, moving, finding and being a good friend, faith and finding your purpose. I enjoyed the challenges at the end of each chapter that had beginner, intermediate and advanced challenges to choose from. I feel like this is the type of book that I'd definitely prefer a paperback version and be able to underline and highlight areas that are important to me and ones I want to come back to in the future. Reading this book also prompted me to look for Caroline Fausel's website, Olive You Whole and even start listening to her podcasts!

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Publication date: 7 January 2025

A Simply Healthy Life by Caroline Fausel is a practical guide to living well, divided into four parts: Health and Wellness, Environment, Connection, and Faith. Each chapter offers actionable steps for beginners, intermediates, and advanced readers, making it accessible to everyone. With discussion questions and focused goals, it’s easy to dive into any chapter and start making positive changes. I’m currently using it to build healthier habits and I anticipate returning to this resource often.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tyndale House Publishers for giving me an eARC to review before publishing.

I chose to read this book because I'm all about quality of life. Who doesn't want to be happy, connected, and living intentionally?

Physical health is such a huge determinant of the quality of our lives. Unfortunately, if you're a typical American who works full-time, it's hard to establish and maintain a healthy lifestyle that includes enough quality sleep, high nutrition without too many calories, and all the exercise we need (cardio, strength, flexibility, balance). Plus, there's social connection, the fun factor, brain health, etc.

This book is written for Christian women who are most likely married and have children and are struggling to take care of themselves with all of their responsibilities. There are Bible quotes in it to support its statements. While I do not fall into the target audience, I know women who this book is geared to. These women often give until they are shells of themselves. I can see why a book like this could be helpful to women who think it's selfish to take care of themselves. As a former caregiver, I know how hard it is to balance caregiving with selfcare, if there is any balance.

While I found too much "girlfriend to girlfriend" chatter in her writing, I understand that the author is trying to establish a rapport with her ideal reader.

I would list the table of contents, but in the eARC, it's a bit all over the place in the format I can see. The best way to list it seems to be

Introduction
Part 1: Health and Wellness
Part 2: Environment
Part 3: Connection
Part 4: Finding Your Purpose

Apologies to the author and publisher if I didn't list the contents correctly.

There are better resources out there. She referenced some, including James Clear and BJ Fogg. However, she's trying to reach a target audience who might not pick up those books.

I like the chapter summaries she offers at the end of the book.

TLDR:

While there's some good stuff in this book, it's not tightly edited, and there are also some issues with some of the statements. It's definitely geared to young or youngish women who are Christian, married, and have children or want children. However, some of the information in the book is problematic. There's a lot of anecdotal stories.

I was drawn to the book because of the title & description. I am always looking for more information about healthy habits to incorporate into our life. While there is some great information here, it isn't necessarily anything new or earth-shattering. The fact that this book was from a Christian publishing house, I was expecting to have more incorporation of Biblical principles & perspectives throughout the book. Many times, these types of books can get really preachy & this book treads into that territory at times. However, the author does acknowledge her past mistakes & offers varying levels of healthy changes that the reader can make fit into their lives. Not a bad book, and it could be a great resource for people seeking to make these types of changes.

I did not finish this book because it seemed to have a lot of repetitive ideas from other similar books I have read. I did, however, appreciate Caroline's lighthearted writing style.

A Simply Healthy Life by Caroline Fausel is my new manual for a healthy way of living. I love how it is divided into four parts to include 1) Health and Wellness, 2) Environment, 3) Connection and 4) Faith. Each section provides actionable steps to take for a healthy life. At the end of each chapter there are suggestions provided for actions to take based on whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced. There are also discussion quesitons at the end of the book that align with the topics covered in each chapter. This is a comprehensive book on making positive life changes.

I loved that I could jump to any one chapter I was interested in learning more about, and find tasks I could do immediately to improve my life. Right now, I am working on a beginner goal of drinking 8 glasses of water a day. I found that this would be a good step for me and Fausel provides suggestions of how to go about achieving this goal. I anticipate this will be a book I will return to often. I look forward to using her steps to improve my quality of life.

What really caught my eye was the cover of this book so that first drew me in! I'm also interested in books about wellness and hacks that help live a more balanced life. Overall, the content covered things like family life, getting good sleep, exercise, etc., which I liked. I didn't realize that it is heavy on the Christian content and bible quotes. It's for a very specific audience and so keep that in mind if recommending to others.