This book is laugh-out-loud funny. It really is a neat tale of a woman becoming her best self and in a so much more fun way than Oprah. And it has such a nice ending. It doesn't get much better than this. ( )

Over the last few days I finished a book I won from www.Mothersclick.com: Up For Renewal by Cathy Alter. The book was funny and interesting with it’s tongue in cheek approach to life lessons and self improvement tactics through advice she found in the latest popular magazines. It was truly humorous and an enjoyable read. She has quite the whimsy voice in her writing and a witty way of sharing her developing love story.

upforrenewaltpbcover-small She made a pact for 12 months (each devoted to one focus of her self-improvement agenda) that she would rely on magazines to offer her advice in each of the focuses for her life and personal development. The first month after she began she devoted to ‘diet’ and the rest ranged from bettering her relationships to bettering herself and her sex-life.*

I loved the way she talks about what leads up to her year summation of turning her life over to magazines, through witty and comical reactions that I could see myself doing in some instances. Finally she summarizes she was not only subscribing her life to magazines but was also subscribing to change and working through the transitions it required for her to get out of a bad relationship and even a rotten job… Cute, cute story – that gets you thinking about changes you might want to work on in your own life.

So after reading the book, even though I was entertained by her humor and her approach to personal development, it also got me thinking… for my list this coming new year I want to focus on just 12 to-do items and have one assigned to each month of the year: my monthly missions. Now I won’t be listing improving my sex-life (since I don’t have a sex life, by choice while I am still single) nor will I be consulting the latest popular magazines for advice in accomplishing these missions; instead I may seek advice from close friends/mentors, my pastor, or my counselor. I will also focus on researching for info from blogging communities and other website resources. (If it’s on the web it has to be true and good advice, right? Just kidding.) .....http://kitkat4real.blogspot.com

This book is a memoir about the one year in the life of Cathy Alter. In the beginning of the book Cathy is a recently divorced, thirty nine year old who's life is out of control. She parties until all hours of the night, gets her lunch out of the vending machine at work and sleeps with her co-worker in her cubicle with no inhibitions. Standing in front of a magazine display, like the cover, she has an idea. What if, she lived her life for one year following the directions of magazines? Then, she does just that. Each month she has a new thing to work on. Month one, plastic wrap.

This book is laugh out loud funny! I was giggling in front of my co-workers the whole time I read this book. When I started reading it, my first thought was, "What and idiot! Who would do this?" but you begin to realize that Cathy had hit rock bottom and if turning to magazines was going to help her out of that slump, great. I am sure that learning how to wrap a sandwich in plastic wrapped perfection might not turn your life around, it was the beginning of something big for Cathy.

Cathy is each one of us. She is insecure and her own worst critic. She had made poor decisions in her life and she just might make a few mistakes today. But she is also sexy and funny and perky and willing to take risks. She is relate-able and by the end of the book you feel like you are saying goodbye to your new best friend. ( )

Cathy is a writer whose life was out of control. She was in her 40's, with a failed marriage and a slew of poor decisions and inappropriate men behind her. She decided what she really wanted and the list looked like what every women's magazine on the rack promised- "Find the love you deserve", "Perfect meals", "Paint to the rescue"... That's when she decided that for the next year she would follow the advice she could find in these magazines without question. And this is the book about the how, why and what happened during that year.

And it was a hoot! A funny and unbelievable honest look at how Cathy met the challenges of changing her life around. Each month was a different challenge to tackle. Food, Clothing, Sex, Cooking it's all here. While all this change was going on she picked up a boyfriend and his mother to add to the mix and learned to deal with with those challenges as well with the flip of a page.

Ultimately Cathy did question the validity of these articles and came to the realization that the magazine articles may be "the vehicle to her change (some months she thought it was an ambulance)" but it was really her that made the positive changes in her life.

I was fortunate to receive a copy from Cathy's publicist and thoroughly enjoyed it! Pick up this book! You will not be disappointed! And you may get a few pointers to change your own life ( )

Ending a five-year marriage and looking up from the malaise which has covered her life like a fog, D.C.-based writer Cathy Alter begins a quest to transform her life, Oprah-style -- all by following the edicts of twelve magazines. This memoir is her humorous look at trying to attain the "perfect" life featured in the magazines' spreads -- and realizing that reality can actually be better than that.

With periodicals like Real Simple, O Magazine, Cosmo and Allure pouring into her mailbox, Cathy chooses to focus on improving one area of her life monthly. As she tries to end an office affair about to combust and desperately wants to improve her relationship with her well-meaning but critical mother, Cathy looks to her magazines for advice on getting through all of life's sticky situations.

There's much to like about Alter's wit and the hilarious situations in which she finds herself -- including all the gritty details about her affair with Bruno, the office lazybones who skates by on his Latin charisma. At many points I wanted to reach between the text and give Cathy's shoulder a good shake -- I mean, seriously, what was she doing sleeping with this guy . . . especially at work? -- I couldn't necessarily fault her for how her views on life had slipped.

Alter's memoir isn't about buying into a magazine's idea of happiness so much as it is about finding your own. And though her situation started out harried and messy, life evolved into something far greater than she could have imagined. And following on her year of magazine-worshiping was definitely fun and worthwhile.

Read my full review at write meg!

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