A book review of A Testament to My Ego by William Smoothwater
Stars: ****
Austin Macauley (2021)
Self-Help
182 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.
Summary: A Testament to My Ego is a thoughtful reflection on a part of the author’s life. While everything appears to be cruising along just fine, the author finds and endures hardships, trauma, social isolation, and various forms of penetrating abuse. Through it all, he never loses sight of the fact that this life is ‘one worth living’ and believes we should all do our best to wake up to another day, and give the world our very best selves, no matter how dire the situation. If you, the reader, can take anything away from this book, it is that you can succeed at being more than what you ever thought possible. There’s no reinvention of the wheel here, but it’s raw, it’s gutsy, and if you think your emotions have been deadened by the harshness of Western society, you should think again.
A Testament to My Ego
This book reads like a memoir for the most part. We see what happened in his life. However he has a positive outlook on life, despite his setbacks. At the end especially he wraps up what he wants the reader to take away from his book.
It was interesting. He deals with gambling addiction, divorce, hospitalizations for Bipolar 1 and dealing with jumping from job to job. I couldn’t put the book down because I wanted to know what happened next.
One thing could have made the book better. I found the chapter about his Vegas trips too long. It was just an itinerary of what he did on each trip. Some of it was needed of course to tell the story of the money he lost while gambling. I just felt they were too long and we didn’t need one mini section for each trip.
I’m not sure why it’s considered self help, at least on Amazon. But it was an interesting read.
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