Reviews and Ratings of All 15 Books I Read in 2019

1. Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies by Scarlett Curtis

Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies is a collection of writing from extraordinary women, from Hollywood actresses to teenage activists, each telling the story of her personal relationship with feminism.

Often funny, sometimes surprising, and always inspiring, this book aims to bridge the gap between the feminist hashtag and the scholarly text by giving women the space to explain how they actually feel about feminism.

My Rating: ★★★★

If, like me, you’re not too clued up on what it means to be a feminist or you want to read about issues affecting girls around the world and what you can do to help, I would recommend reading this book. It’s enlightened me to a lot of problems that I was unaware of and made me want to help make a change.

2. Leave Your Mark by Aliza Licht

Aliza Licht-global fashion communications executive, AKA fashion’s favorite ‘PR girl’ and former Twitter phenomenon-is here to tell her story, complete with The Devil Wears Prada-like moments and insider secrets.

Drawing invaluable lessons from her experience, Licht shares advice, inspiration, and a healthy dose of real talk in Leave Your Mark. She delivers personal and professional guidance for people just starting their careers and for people who are well on their way.

My Rating: ★★★★★

You might know Aliza Licht by her alias, DKNY PR Girl. Aliza was the creator behind the famous Twitter handle that over time, acquired hundreds of thousands of followers, acting as an anonymous ‘PR Girl’ working behind the scenes at all the glitzy events and dishing out gossip, rumours and back stage antics. Think of it as the first ever Gossip Girl.

This book is great for anyone that is just starting out in their career, especially in PR or Fashion. It’s full of great tips for CVs, interviews, internships and asking for promotions.

3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

One of the best-known motivational guides in history, Dale Carnegie’s groundbreaking book has sold tens of millions of copies, been translated into almost every known language, and has helped countless people succeed.

Originally published during the depths of the Great Depression, and equally valuable during booming economies or hard times, Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their professional and personal lives.

My Rating: ★★

I must confess, I wasn’t too fussed on this one. It’s a worldwide renowned book (one of the best-selling books of all time) that a lot of people recommend, but for me it just wasn’t applicable to my current situation.

The book was originally written in 1936 and a lot of the examples in the book date back to that time.

I suppose there are tips on how to communicate with people better, like listen more than you talk, show genuine interest in what the person has to say and show what you can do for someone rather than demand something.

4. How to Be An Overnight Success by Maria Hatzistefanis

When the skincare company Rodial launched its cult ‘snake’ serum, the press quickly called the business an ‘overnight success’. However, Maria sets out to demonstrate that its success stemmed from sheer hard work, hard graft and a lot of patience.

She did it by dreaming big, working hard, surrounding herself with the best, taking risks, creating buzz and building her own personal brand, which is now a favourite with high-profile models and media personalities including Poppy Delevingne, Daisy Lowe and Kylie Jenner.

My Rating: ★★★★

Back in 2014 when I was infatuated by the celebrity world on social media, I bought three Nip+Fab products from Superdrug because Kylie Jenner said she loved the brand.

Ever since, I’ve been using the Nip+Fab products in my daily skincare routine and owe the clearance of my acne scars to one of their best-selling creams. I had no idea when I started this book that Maria was behind the brand as I only knew her from Rodial – the more luxury skincare brand that she also founded.

Reading this book as a customer, made me feel a lot more connected to the book and even a part of the journey. Along the journey that Maria has taken, she gives advice, talks about lessons learned and speaks a lot about knowing her own brand and knowing herself what was right for every aspect of it.

5. The Art and Craft of PR by Sandra Stahl

This book is built around the idea that PR as a communications discipline has no boundaries. It is the PR professional’s manual for creating that specific type of mindset and building the necessary skills to meet today’s communications challenges, which include mastery of the fundamentals, cultivating unbridled curiosity and creativity, the art of listening, and never losing sight of business objectives.

This book will be highly relevant to PR students and novices looking to break into the industry, and to junior and mid-level PR practitioners interested in learning new skills which they can use to gain a creative edge on their competition.

My Rating: ★★★★

This is a great book for anyone in PR and talks about the history and future of what’s to come. I especially loved the ending of the book which featured a lot of industry professionals giving their advice to PR professionals just starting out or about to start out in the PR world.

I would advise anyone that is studying PR or just graduated to read this book for an insight into PR, great advice from esteemed professionals and examples that you can learn from.

6. Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso

Sophia Amoruso spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and scrounging in dumpsters for leftover bagels. By age twenty-two she had dropped out of school, and was broke, directionless, and checking IDs in the lobby of an art school—a job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was in that lobby that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay.

Flash forward to today, and she’s the founder of Nasty Gal and the founder and CEO of Girlboss. Sophia was never a typical CEO, or a typical anything, and she’s written #GIRLBOSS for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as all hell and lined with naysayers.

My Rating: ★★★★★

This book is basically my bible. This is the third time that I’ve read the book cover to cover. I first read this book the Christmas after I started my blog (around four months in) and it changed my entire perspective on everything.

At the time, it was the book that I really needed to read. It gave me a massive kick up the ass and taught me that things will not just fall into my lap, I have to work for them myself.

So if you’re needing that kick up the ass yourself, some motivation or to learn how you can build an empire from absolutely nothing, I would totally recommend this book.

7. Legacy by James Kerr

In Legacy, best-selling author James Kerr goes deep into the heart of the world’s most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business.

Legacy is a unique, inspiring handbook for leaders in all fields, and asks: What are the secrets of success and sustained success? How do you achieve world-class standards, day after day, week after week, year after year? How do you handle pressure?

My Rating: ★★★

Legacy is very much about working as a team as the book follows the New Zealand rugby team who are seen as the most invincible rugby team of all time.

But why do they appear invincible and what makes them work so well as a team? The book puts all of the sporting ways of working into business examples and shows how the two can align.

This book seems to be more geared toward business leaders and owners, but you can still learn something from the All Blacks’ way of life and how they act.

8. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

In 2006, a groundbreaking feature-length film revealed the great mystery of the universe—The Secret—and, later that year, Rhonda Byrne followed with a book that became a worldwide bestseller.

In this book, you’ll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life—money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world.

You’ll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that’s within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.

My Rating: ★★★★★

Before you think I’m going to say that every book has changed my life, I won’t. But this one and Girlboss back in 2016 have both changed my life in completely different ways.

If you read any book from the ones that I recommend, please read this one. Before you blow it off as witchcraft or waffle, just try it. I’m a huge believer in the Law of Attraction and practice it often.

I wish this book had come into my life much sooner, but I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today or had the experiences I’ve had if it wasn’t for practising the Law of Attraction. I owe everything to it.

9. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

In the first chapter, Tolle introduces readers to enlightenment and its natural enemy, the mind. He awakens readers to their role as a creator of pain and shows them how to have a pain-free identity by living fully in the present.

The journey is thrilling, and along the way, the author shows how to connect to the indestructible essence of our Being, “the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.”

My Rating: ★★

I saw this book so many times on Sinead Hegarty’s Instagram story that I had to buy it. It seemed that everyone was reading it and becoming enlightened. But I have to say that the majority of it went right over my head.

I do understand the whole ‘living in the now’ aspect and to stop looking into the future when all you have is the current moment you are in, but the book did get very technical and deep and it was quite a lot for me to understand.

10. Lost Connections by Johann Hari

There was a mystery haunting award-winning investigative journalist Johann Hari. He was thirty-nine years old, and almost every year he had been alive, depression and anxiety had increased in Britain and across the Western world. Why?

As an adult, he went on a forty-thousand-mile journey across the world to interview the leading experts about what causes depression and anxiety, and what solves them. He learned there is scientific evidence for nine different causes of depression and anxiety-and that this knowledge leads to a very different set of solutions: ones that offer real hope.

My Rating: ★★★

The book is subtitled ‘Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope’ but it’s not just for people that are feeling depressed as I wouldn’t put myself in that category.

Most of all, it teaches you why people become depressed, how antidepressants just don’t work and that depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance but rather factors that take place or have taken place in a person’s life.

The best thing about the book is that it looks at all the reasons that people can become depressed and compares today’s society with previous generations and why depression is now such an epidemic.

11. Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Shen

Bad Girls Throughout History is an empowering book for girls and women of all ages. From Maya Angelou to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this gorgeously illustrated book celebrates 100 influential women who made history and made their mark on the world by being bad in the best sense of the word: they challenged the status quo and changed the rules.

From pirates to artists, warriors, daredevils, scientists, activists, and spies, the accomplishments of these badass women who dared to push boundaries vary as much as the eras and places in which they effected change.

My Rating: ★★★★★

I loved this book a lot. If you’ve been around a while then you’ll know that I’m a huge advocate of women in the workplace and women reaching high positions and making a difference in the world, so this book was right up my street.

I especially loved it because it introduced me to a lot of women that I had never heard of before or taught me things I didn’t know about the women I had heard of like Joan of Ark and Cleopatra.

12. Getting There by Gillian Zoe Segal

Rather than a single prescriptive framework, Getting There: A Book of Mentors offers short, direct essays that focus on what actually happened: early missteps, hard calls, unexpected opportunities, and the habits and principles that held up over time.

The throughline is practical: how people navigated uncertainty, handled failure, and learned to keep moving when the outcome wasn’t clear.

My Rating: ★★★

This is a book full of mentors, from Warren Buffet to Sarah Blakely. It gives a short account of what they were like when they were younger, how they started out and then how they came to be the huge business moguls that they are today.

There were a lot of names that I didn’t know and a very varied range of industries included which was enlightening.

13. Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want in life is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. But there is unlimited power that lies dormant within us all.

We all have a sleeping giant within us. Each of us have our own bit of genius just waiting to be tapped. It might be a talent for art or music. It might be empathy. It might be innovating or business acumen. Most people are unaware of the untapped potential we can immediately command when we concentrate all our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.

My Rating: ★★★★

This book is definitely one to make you re-evaluate your life situation, the way you think, the way you act and how you can change the course of your life.

I would always recommend Tony Robbins to anyone that wants to start getting into self-help content and bettering themselves.

14. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. “F**k positivity,” Mark Manson says. “Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it.”

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

My Rating: ★★

I had heard quite a lot about this book and seen a lot of people reading it on social media, but being honest, it didn’t live up to the hype. I was expecting to be changed as a person, have my mindset changed and be free of caring what others think.

But alas, no. I had read a similar book before called The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight which I think was a much better read, but that was three years before I had been introduced to any form of self-help/motivational reading.

15. Unf*ck Yourself by Gary John Bishop

A refreshing, no-nonsense, self-empowerment guide that offers an honest, crystal clear, tough-love approach to help you stop the self-sabotage and move past self-imposed limitations.

True happiness and success come when you are willing to take that next step—and this is your final push. With all the sh*t going on in the world today, it is time to become the toughest, most tenacious version of yourself.

My Rating: ★★★

These self-help books are starting to take a turn aren’t they? Basically the same title as the last but I definitely preferred this one.

Another very easy read, it was straight to the point and made me think about things a lot more than the previous book. Another great book to help get started into the world of self-help and motivation, it does have a lot of great content to make you think why you aren’t reaching your full potential.