⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Genre(s): Non-fiction, Self-Improvement
Everything Is Figureoutable is Marie Forleo’s philosphy to facing roadblocks in life as well as improving your life. This book explains her philosophy and how to implement it, using a combination of personal anecdotes as well as stories from her clients. Everything is Figureoutable also includes self-reflection sections at the end of each chapter so readers can implement each chapter’s concept into their own lives.
I was a bit hesitant to pick up this book at first, seeing that it was blurbed by several authors whose books I was not a fan of. I saw the same in some others’ book reviews. I worried that these would be the same types of books with the “You can do it!” mentality that doesn’t show how to do it or rely on self-discovery techniques to get there. But Everything is Figureoutable does provide self-reflection work that can help you apply the principles discussed to your life, and figure out how to get un-stuck in your current situation.
Aside from these exercises, Marie also covers some positive-thinking mentalities that help relieve you from tough situations (and actually solve them). Many of these approaches were unique to me and not the same re-hash from other similar self-help novels that I’ve written in the past.
However, this is a 3.5 for me because of some of the examples she uses. Similar to other books I’ve read, so many of her personal anecdotes were from her own personal failures that are probably going to feel out of reach to the average reader. Two of which were related to her traveling abroad – one about how she arrived late to the airport with her husband, and another about how she fell off a scooter while abroad. Instead of these, it probably would have been more accessible to readers to have interviewed other people with more average lives so that these situations were a bit more relatable. At the end of each chapter, there is a letter to Marie about how her principles have changed their lives, and I think using tidbits of these letters would have been a better use of this instead of some of the stories she had. (These full letters also read like testimonials to me, which felt a bit off.)
Additionally, some of the anecdotes that were used on famous figures were so brief in comparison and did not do much to serve her points when it could have done so much more. I had to put the book down for a moment and process what I had just read when she essentially said that Malala Yousafzai survived getting shot in the head because Everything is Figureoutable! There were so many ways to have praised her strength and determination in this book, so using that as an example of all things was just…not it.
Despite all this, I do still think that this book covers a lot more than your typical self-help books, and I did take away quite a bit from it. It would have, however, been much more powerful using experiences other than her own. I’m not familiar with MarieTV, but it seems like between that and this that there is a lot of self-reflection content guided at viewers (questions, worksheets, etc.) that can help readers figure out their current situation, even if her stories don’t apply as much.
-Julie Anna
