The New Book Review

This blog, #TheNewBookReview, is "new" because it eschews #bookbigotry. It lets readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers expand the exposure of their favorite reviews, FREE. Info for submissions is in the "Send Me Your Fav Book Review" circle icon in the right column below. Find resources to help your career using the mini search engine below. #TheNewBookReview is a multi-award-winning blog including a MastersInEnglish.org recommendation.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Miracle in Fiction Gets Goodreads Attention

The Most Unexpected Course in Miracles
 
Title: Life Can Be a Miracle
Author: Ivinela Samuilova
Author's Website: http://ivinela.webs.com
Genre: Fiction/Inspirational/Self-help/Spiritual
ASIN: B00CZCCQ3U
Reviewer: Leila Summers
Reviewer’s link: http://www.leilasummers.co.za/blog
Reviewer's Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
 
Reviewed by Leila Summers, originally for Goodreads
 
This book will appeal mostly to people who enjoy reading self-help, psychology, metaphysical and spiritual books or inspirational novels with a message. It does not necessarily read as a typical novel, though there is an enjoyable storyline that surrounds the insightful information. The book was translated into English from Bulgarian and the translation and the writing are excellent.

The story revolves around Adie, a woman who is searching for her purpose and Alexey, an unusual psychologist who runs seminars that Adie attends. I was most interested to discover that Alexey is a real person whom the author received permission from to use his real name and share his distinctive methods. This made the book all the more interesting for me because the information is authentic, and after trying out some of the techniques myself, I found that they actually work!

Alexey’s seminars are sometimes described in detail which I found fascinating. It was almost as though I was attending the seminar myself, which would be impossible under any other circumstance, because Alexey Bachev lives in Bulgaria and speaks Bulgarian. I read many non-fiction books, articles and listen to various speakers on these topics, so for me this was a unique experience.

Here is an edited section from one of Alexey’s seminars - We all hold a mental map in our heads about what life is, how to live, who we are, what is possible, what is not possible and so on. This mental map determines our perception of the world, but what it shows us in not the world… It is like when you pour liquid into a container: the liquid takes the form of the container. In the same way, reality flows into our (mental) maps, and thus our maps shape our reality. When we fill our mind with something, like a problem for example, then our mental map will take the shape of the problem… In other words, the mental map that we hold shapes our reality that we experience… (But) we can go beyond the limits of the reality that we have shaped.
There are so many interesting insights that the book took me longer than usual to read, as I stopped to take notes and digest them. I do hope that the author considers translating her other novels in English so that I can read them too.

I think that this book will appeal to anyone who has an open mind, a sense of adventure and humor, an interest in psychology, believes that we can shape our reality, and would like to learn some different and fun ways on how to handle a problem.
 
About the Author
Ivinela Samuilova lives in Sophia, Bulgaria. She has an MA in Theology and a strong interest in the inner world of human beings. Ivinela's books turned out to be a phenomenon on the Bulgarian book market where she is considered to be an influential, original and spirited new voice. Ivinela’s debut novel ‘Life Can Be a Miracle’ was released in English as an e-book in spring 2013.
 
Follow Ivinela on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Ivinela.Samuilova or on Twitter @ivinela
 
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

No comments: