A touching and inspiring sel help book about self help. How useful is self help, how much are we being taken for a ride and reading nonsense? How much of the wisdom of self-help books actually comes from within? All is explored and ruminated upon within.

As a big fan of self help books I was over the moon to get my hands on an advance copy of this. It didn’t disappoint! Witty, intelligent, honest and thoughtful, this is a realistic take on the bonkers millionaire world of self-help. So relatable and such a bonus that Matthew Hussey (my dating guru) was one of the books used. #Husseyed

It's a self-help book about self-help. This paradox of a book is actually a very sweet, very honest take on how self-help can often not be worth the paper it's printed on, but in some cases can make you take a sincere look at your life and consider what you need to do. It talks frankly about depression and mental illness, in particular how the voice in your head can tell you constant lies that gives you unhealthy behaviours and actions. It's something I'm endlessly guilty of, and to read someone elses account of it and put it into words was very cathartic for me. Power jumps between moments of grand wisdom, to more intimate moments considering her relationships with her friends and family. I don't think I've ever read a book- fiction or non fiction- that so accurately appears to portray depression and a negative brain in the way I have experienced. This is a really interesting read and I hope others pick it up when it's published.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Help Me’ in exchange for my honest unbiased review.

This is a self help book. It is well written, month by month. The book was ok . I’m still slightly unsure about this book and whether it would aid myself.

In her mid-thirties, journalist Marianne Power finds herself suffering from a pervasive unhappiness with her life.

It’s not that life is bad - she has a job, a family, friends. But she’s chronically single, doesn’t have her own home and her finances are a mess.

A long-term reader (if not follower) of self help books, Marianne challenges herself to not only read them - one per month - but do everything they say... in order to see how her life changes as a result.

It all starts off well enough - Marianne pushes herself out of her comfort zone by (among other things) performing stand-up comedy and doing a parachute jump, inspired by Susan Jeffers’ classic Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. The following month she finally starts to get a grip on her disastrous finances, courtesy of Kate

But after that things start to get a bit stranger.

Dabbling in Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, Marianne expresses perfectly what many of us probably think (that it’s clearly an old load of utter rubbish, but...... what if it isn’t?). (Spoiler: it is. Setting goals is fine but sticking a label over the display on your scales showing the weight you want to be isn’t, in the absence of any actual effort, going to make a lot of difference.)

Moving on (via Tony Robbins, angels, F**k It, The Power of Now and more), it turns out to be a year which will severely challenge her relationships, her finances and her self image. Marianne’s life is changing, certainly, but is it for the better? Where on earth will it all end?

There’s a very real danger that self-help addicts can become self-obsessed and at risk of disappearing into their own navels. First world problems, and all that. Fortunately Marianne has her mum on hand, who’s always ready with a pithy reality check. (I loved Marianne’s mum, she was great.)

Help Me is written in a very honest and engaging style. It’s not quite what I expected - a neat month-by-month foray into various categories of self help - perhaps unsurprisingly, it all goes a bit more haywire than that. But it’s never less than highly entertaining. And informative. And eye-opening, at times. A great read.

By the way, while stalkerishly googling Marianne Power (I wanted to know what she looks like - she’s lovely), I stumbled upon a YouTube video of her speech to the Camberley Toastmasters. Worth a look!