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Peace And Plenty: Finding Your Path To Financial Serenity (2010)

by Sarah Ban Breathnach(Favorite Author)

3.46 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0446561746 (ISBN13: 9780446561747)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Grand Central Publishing

review 1: I had read and enjoyed some of Sarah Ban Breathnach's earlier books, so thought I would give this recent one a try (and I liked the cover; silly, I know). This book made me wonder why I had liked the others. Admittedly, I didn't finish this, but jumped around reading here and there, and skimming other parts. There is little about her own financial serenity in this book, but mostly what she draws from earlier writers who had experienced hard times. It is more about the high financial anxiety of a woman who goes from struggling to pay her bills, to making over a million dollars, thanks to Oprah, then losing it all. Not ever having had the experience of receiving a ginormous financial windfall, perhaps I find it hard to sympathize. What comes across to me is a foolish s... moreilly woman who spends her money on things like Marilyn Monroe's furs, designer wardrobes, especially Manolo Blahnik shoes, a large staff, flights on the Concorde, and three expensive homes (one N.Y. apartment where her monthly rent exceeded her annual income of the previous twenty years and where she spent very little time). She seems to have no idea how much money she is spending. Worse, she seems to think that all women are like her, who constantly have to shop for pretty things and have no idea how to manage their financial affairs. Or who have found themselves victims in the Great Recession because of their debt and overspending (assuming the victims to have landed there because of their own profligacy and not just economic factors like job losses or personal hardship such as illness). Not only that, she has little self awareness and less perception of others to the extent that she marries a con man who quickly goes through the last of her money. She cites other successful, brilliant creative women like Rumer Godden who were also financially ruined by their husbands. So, she advises women to keep a secret account that their husbands don't know about in case they need to escape. Sheesh! She prays, "Restore in us serenity and common sense as we pay our bills and balance our household accounts." Well, duh. I do find redeeming passages, when she speaks of time in the garden, for instance. She does write well; her words are evocative and lyrical. And, if I'd had the wherewithal, I, too, would have been tempted by Isaac Newton's chapel cottage in its lovely English garden. Sigh. If only she had seen through her nasty English con man of a husband sooner, she might have been able to keep her home. She unflinchingly trades on her mistakes and certainly it takes courage to do so. Her story is a cautionary tale, her wisdom hard won, but if you were reading it as a novel, you'd be shaking your head at the protagonist's stupidity. Sorry for saying it, Sarah.
review 2: I loved, loved, loved Simple Abundance. It is one of my 'stuck on a desert island' book choices - I can and have reread it many times.I can not reconcile that wise, centered, intuitive author with the woman in this book. Having a huge bestseller sent Sarah Ban Breathnach into a horrible tailspin apparently. How could someone so seemly enlightened buy Marilyn Monroe's furs among other things, sending herself from millionaire to pauper in a few short years? The book itself, while fascinating in a car crash kind of way, seems to struggle and meander. There wasn't enough 'there' there. I did find the subject timely and I will be using the bibliography to read more on this topic. I read parts of Simple Abundance at the same time and Sarah notes at the conclusion of that book that her daughter was 8 when she started it and 13 when she finished. In this book she says she always knew Simple Abundance would be on the New York Times bestseller list. I am sad to see that she worked so long and hard to accomplish a dream, never realizing that it would bring her so much grief, shame, and pain. less

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