I put this book aside in the bookstore several times... I had heard mixed reviews of it and didn't prioritize it on my reading schedule.

As some who know me know, I've been going through a bit of a roller coaster of stuff in my life the last few years (some great, some horrific, some fun, some scary, but lots of stuff with no focus or direction). I've got a client who has become a friend over the years who is near my age who has been going through similar stuff in her life and so we've been talking the past few months (she is soon to be an ex-client as she is quitting her great job to move back home across the country and open a yoga studio). She recommended the book to me with the advice that I read it thinking about my own journey in life and how I would react or deal with the situations in front of me.

I have to say, reading it in this mindset was VERY meaningful for me as I had been struggling with a lot of spiritual and internalized issues. I didn't see it as "self-help" or a travel narrative but rather a autobiographical look at one person's emotional struggle placed against the backdrop of three different cultural influences. And so for me, it was very meaningful as it provided me a framework to examine some things I had going on in my own life and to use someone else's journey as a stepping stone.

I think that at another time and place in my life, I would have found the writer to be whiny and self-absorbed. Since I was there myself, however, it was nice to see some road out of it (and not necessarily the choices that she made either).

If nothing else, I've determined that I *really* need to get back to a regular yoga practice!