Review: Slow Love by Dominique Browning

Title: Slow Love
Author: Dominique Browning
Publisher: Atlas Books
Publish Date: Today!
Source: Netgalley

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You like quirky memoirs.
• You like stories about self-discovery.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "In November 2007, former editor in chief of House & Garden magazine Dominique Browning experienced what thousands have since experienced. She lost her job. Overnight, her driven, purpose-filled days vanished. With her children leaving home and a long relationship ending, the structure of her days disappeared. She fell into a panic of loss but found humor despite everything, discovering a deeper joy than any she had ever known. It was a life she had not sought, but one that offered pleasures and surprises she didn’t know she lacked.

Slow Love is about wearing your pajamas to the farmers’ market, packing up a beloved home and moving to a more rural setting, making time to play the piano and go kayaking, reinventing yourself, and not cutting corners when it comes to love, muffins, or gardening. This elegant, graceful—and yet funny—book inspires us to dance in the kitchen and seize new directions."

My Two Cents:

I liked the very core of this book: taking time and not being afraid to slow down a little. I feel like myself and a lot of other people could do well to heed that advice. Dominique Browning faced what a lot of Americans faced during this recession that our country is still healing from; she lost her job. For so many people, particularly Americans, what they do for a living is a huge part of how they see themselves and how they feel about themselves. Without a job, they feel out at sea. Browning definitely feels this. She has no regular schedule and no idea how to move forward.

This is a very timely book and as I said, I think a lot of people could learn from the book; however, there was one major thing that really took away from the book and drove me a little batty. Browning is involved with a married man and is obsessed about why he won't leave his wife (and he's not even that nice of a guy to begin with so I don't see why she wanted him). She's obsessed with this imperfect relationship and hangs in there for way too long (several years). I just didn't get it. I felt the need to shake her and ask her WTH she was doing. This book in a way is about learning to love yourself but the whole part with Stroller seemed to totally go against that. I really found myself wishing that the author would have risen above miring herself in such a detrimental relationship.

The writing in the book was really good and really helped to pull the book together. It almost helped me get past the bad relationship in the book. Almost but not quite...

This book was not really for me.