If It’s Not Right, Go Left: Practical and Inspirational Lessons to Move You in a Positive Direction

Kristen Glosserman, The Collective Book Studio (SEP 21) Hardcover $24.95 (160pp), 978-1-951412-17-3

Kristen Glosserman’s If It’s Not Right, Go Left is an upbeat and approachable lifestyle guide that’s structured around eleven transformative lessons.

Covering topics like attitude, mindset, parenting, and self-care, Glosserman imparts familiar advice, such as to “do what works” and to engage in practices like journaling, alongside fresh suggestions, as about the deep power of traditions. Her lessons build ideas about positive change at a steady pace, so that each notion can be savored and lived out before it’s moved on from. Further, Glosserman’s suggestions are easily adaptable to different personalities and circumstances.

Imparting the belief that change is possible, this clear, direct work acknowledges that one’s desire for change and motivations might sometimes be in tension. Through its holistic vision, though, it seeks to balance the forces of internal and external change, and to help people’s inner and outer worlds to collaborate, rather than compete. Glosserman’s focus on changing attitudes harnesses the power of individual choice, while her focus on family and relationships emphasizes the necessity of life in community with others.

With the appealing visuals of a glossy magazine, including floral pull quote pages, full-page lifestyle photographs, and helpful inset lists and sidebars, this is a text that is both inviting and empowering. While the photographs present an idealized vision of daily existence, Glosserman admits that her life is not always the way that it’s pictured. Her presence fills the pages of the book, which are complete with personal stories of both her successes and failures, without infringing on the book’s mission: to encourage everyone to live, and to write their own life stories, well.

If It’s Not Right, Go Left is a positive self-help guide that is encouraging to its audience, no matter their starting points. MELISSA WUSKE