Book Review: Devotion by Dani Shapiro

I got this book for free as part of the TLC Book Tour pro­mo­tion.
Dani Shapiro is avail­able and very enthu­si­as­tic about doing skype chats with book clubs.

My rat­ing for Devo­tion – 3

About:
“Devo­tion” by Dani Shapiro (Web­site | Face­book | Twit­ter | Blog) is a mem­oir about the authors mid-life cri­sis and search for spir­i­tu­al­ity. The book pro­vided a fas­ci­nat­ing read into the mind of a woman that, it seemed to me, couldn’t find inner calm if it slapped her in the face.

Pur­chase “Devo­tion” through the ManOfLa­Book affil­i­ate account on:
Ama­zon |Book Depos­i­tory US | Book Depos­i­tory UK

Thoughts:
In “Devo­tion” by Dani Shapiro, writes in an absorb­ing style about her upbring­ing in an ortho­dox Jew­ish house­hold, which is divided, much like the author, between an obser­vant father and a resent­ful mother. As most of us do, Ms. Shapiro rebelled, started drink­ing and took on an ill-advised lover in the form of a friend’s step­fa­ther. Her life were altered when her par­ents were involved in a car crush, her father trag­i­cally lost his life, her mother broke 80 bones.

Ms. Shapiro was harshly intro­duced to the fragility of life which seem­ingly became a quest for under­stand­ing what is some­times impos­si­ble to comprehend.

The author describes to the reader, in an hon­est and lush prose, her search for spir­i­tu­al­ity through AA meet­ings, yoga, Bud­dhism, Judaism and more (I’m sure I for­got one or two). How­ever, it seems that with all that search­ing and spir­i­tu­al­ism the author fell into a dan­ger­ous trap – tak­ing one­self far too seriously.

Ms. Shapiro’s spir­i­tual jour­ney is divided into short chap­ters, inter­weav­ing anec­dotes from her past which gives the reader some back­ground about present anxieties.

We have a say­ing in our fam­ily “rich people’s prob­lems” – that is when­ever some­one com­plains about some­thing triv­ial which only rich peo­ple, with­out daily mon­e­tary wor­ries actu­ally care about. Maybe things are going too well for Ms. Shapiro, she finally has a suc­cess­ful hus­band which she adores, a won­der­ful son, acclaim, a home in Con­necti­cut and, look­ing at her pic­ture, a youth­ful beauty many women would give their right arm to have.

So I don’t under­stand how she didn’t come out of her funk.

Believe it or not I found that I have sev­eral things in com­mon with Ms. Shapiro — not the least which we both don't con­sider our­selves believ­ers, but we don't con­sider our­selves non-believers either. Which is why I'm sur­prised the con­cept of Tikun Olam didn't come up.

As Ms. Shapiro cer­tainly knows one of the cen­tral ten­ants of Judaism is Tikun Olam (תיקון עולם‎) a con­cept of repair­ing the world. Mean­ing you should do things not because they are required, but because they help soci­ety and avoid chaos. Tikun Olam doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily refer to big, world chang­ing acts, but small acts as well such as vol­un­teer­ing once in a while at a soup kitchen, fire brigade, or help­ing your elderly neigh­bor mow their lawn.
Almost like the "acts of ran­dom kind­ness" con­cept — those who tried either Tikun Olam or acts of ran­dom kind­ness can tell you what a spir­i­tu­ally lift­ing and reward­ing feel­ing it is.

There are moments of wis­dom in the book which are cer­tainly worth the jour­ney taken but at the end the author doesn’t find what she’s look­ing for… but maybe that’s the point.

Syn­op­sis:
Eval­u­at­ing her­self as mid-life approaches, author Dani Shapiro feels anx­i­ety over which she has no con­trol.  Look­ing at mon­u­men­tal per­sonal events in her past makes her real­ize where some of that unease comes from.  Dani Shapiro does not con­sider her­self reli­gious but she is not a non-believer either and yearns to deepen her under­stand­ing of her per­sonal sense of faith.  In her search Ms. Shapiro seeks out sev­eral dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences which are com­plex as they are insightful

Pur­chase “Devo­tion” through the ManOfLa­Book affil­i­ate account on:
Ama­zon |Book Depos­i­tory US | Book Depos­i­tory UK

TLC Book Tour for “Devo­tion”:

Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 9th: Kelly’s Lucky You!
Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 10th: Book Club Clas­sics!
Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 14th: {Mis}Adventures of an Army Wife
Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 15th: Books Lists Life
Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 16th: nomadreader
Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 22nd: Cof­fee and a Book Chick
Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 23rd: Col­lo­quium
Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 24th: The 3 R’s: Read­ing, ‘Rit­ing, and Ran­dom­ness
Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 25th: Books in the City
Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 28th: Eng­lish Major’s Junk Food
Tues­day, March 1st: she reads and reads
Tues­day, March 1st: The House of the Seven Tails
Wednes­day, March 2nd: Board­ing in My For­ties
Thurs­day, March 3rd: Man of La Book
Tues­day, March 8th: Chef­druck Musings

Zohar — Man of la Book

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CJO

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