Disclaimer: This information is provided as educational content and does not constitute or replace healthcare advice or treatment from your medical provider. Content may be used for wide-ranging self-improvement purposes, though it may not be suitable for each person.

If you or someone you know are experiencing a difficult time or noticing thoughts of self-harm or suicide: Alaska Careline: 877-266-4357; call 911 for immediate crisis.

Consult with your healthcare providers for any concerns or changes to your health or well-being.

The familiar saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” can still leave people wondering, “how do I figure out which book to read next?”

Self-help, mental health, and well-being books can be hit or miss, so if you want to judge a book based on a review from a therapist: this blog will share a collection of books I’ve read over the last several years spanning the following topics:

Mental Health & Well-Being,

Positive Psychology,

Sociology / Social Systems

Other Nonfiction 

• (though still relevant towards mental health, therapy, cultural identities, or well-being).

I’ll use this format for each book review:

Nicole’s Rating: 

• Rating scale from 1 (not worth reading) to 10 (read this book STAT)

About:

• Brief overview of the book

What Makes This Book Unique:

• Noteworthy elements or themes about the book

If you have a book you want me to read and/or review, please send me a note using the contact form below! I tried to be concise and limit this blog to less than twenty books, so I’ll post another book review in a few months.

These book reviews are relevant to people who are not therapists, folks who like to learn, people who are becoming therapists or healthcare workers, or mental health professionals. 

Blurb on Literacy Rates & Reading

Reading is a life skill and can be a delightful coping skill for children, teens, and adults. 

I love receiving book recommendations from clients, friends, colleagues, or anyone else who is kind enough to share a suggestion with me!

The ability to read and write is associated with career options, class (im)mobility, and health. 

The National Literacy Institute reports that for 2024, over 21% of adults in the U.S. are illiterate and over 50% of adults in the U.S. have a reading proficiency below a 6th-grade level.

I know the literacy rate is decreasing, yet I continue to write this blog; perhaps I'm part of the problem. 

My hope is to promote connections with people by talking about books and knowledge, and encourage readers to keep reading.

I do not blame or shame people for their literacy rate which often reflects systemic barriers including underfunded education programs, childhood trauma, growing up in a lower socioeconomic status, disability, or fleeing conflict/war.

Audiobooks can be a helpful substitute for folks who may have difficulty with reading text either due to literacy or disability, and many folks enjoy the convenience of audiobooks regardless of reading skills or disability.

Some folks shame audiobooks: I don’t do that. Listening to a book still counts as reading.

Now, let's talk books!

Books Reviews From a Therapist:

(in no specific order)

Mental Health & Well-Being

Attached, by Dr. Peter Levine

Nicole’s Rating: 7.5

About: 

Dr. Levine reviews how adults can use the Attachment Style Theory to understand relationship dynamics and the ways people perceive ourselves in relationships with others.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

This book is a practical guide to understand and explore the reader’s attachment style in relation to a partner (and other relationships). 

Dr. Levine provides an assessment tool to identify your & your partner(s) attachment style and how to foster healthier relationships and deeper connection.

Buddha in Redface, by Dr. Eduardo Duran

Nicole’s Rating: 8.5

About:

Dr. Duran highlights the differences and connections between Western healing and traditional healing from his cultural and educational perspective as a Navajo clinical psychologist.

What Makes This Book Unique:

This riveting book explores Dr. Duran’s experience as an American Indian trained in Western medicine. Dr Duran shares his reflection following his participation in a multi-day traditional Navajo healing ceremony and how that process impacted his professional and personal praxis. This book was not what I expected!

Creating Well-Being: Four Steps to a Happier, Healthier Life, by Dr. Pam Hayes

Nicole’s Rating: 9

About:

Alaskan clinical psychologist Dr. Hayes provides an easy-to-use manual for people to improve their social and emotional well-being and foster a happier, healthier life.

What Makes This Book Unique:

This book provides practical prompts, exercises, stories, and perspectives that are easy to use. While this book does not replace therapy with a licensed professional, Dr. Hayes’ work promotes well-being in an accessible and meaningful format for folks to use outside of a therapy room.

The End of Mental Illness, by Dr. Daniel G. Amen

Nicole’s Rating: 6.5

About:

Dr. Amen provides strategies and tools from neuroscience research to help improve the well-being of people experiencing symptoms associated with mood and anxiety disorders, ADHD, Addictions, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and personality disorders.

What Makes This Book Unique:

Dr. Amen accessibly disseminates neuroscience research; his clinical and research insights can be practically used and he provides helpful tools for people to improve their brain health.

I rate this book a 6.5 because it's most helpful to people with means (AKA, money); a lot of the tools and advice he shares are easier for rich people to implement. I did not love his emphasis on individual efforts which came across as being out of touch; I struggled to see how this book would be helpful to the majority of U.S. readers who face financial stress, trauma, and/or systemic oppression.

Positive Psychology

Authentic Happiness, by Dr. Martin Seligman

Nicole’s Rating: 8

About:

Dr. Seligman is a leader in the field of positive psychology and topics such as: happiness, learned helplessness, depression, and resilience. This book highlights the mechanisms and meaning making perspectives among people who are happy.

What Makes This Book Unique:

Majority of psychological research centers pathology, mental illness, psychological problems, or plainly, “what is wrong with people.”  Dr. Seligman, a self-identified former grump, uses this book to explore his research on resilience and positive psychology to instead highlight what occurs inside the brains of happy and healthy people.

The goal of psychotherapy is not only to treat mental illness but to help people find mental wellness; this book is a charming intro to the concept of psychological well-being that can help put me out of a job.

Finding Flow, by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Nicole’s Rating: 8

About:

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “Cheek-sent-me-high”), “the father of flow,” a leader in positive psychology research, highlights a facet of psychological well-being known as “flow state” using examples from professional athletes, artists, Buddhists, performers, and enthusiastic enjoyers of hobbies.

What Makes This Book Unique:

Flow state may also be known as, “being in the zone,” a state in which a person is adequately challenged while having enough skill or competence, and finds intense enjoyment, interest, or meaning by engaging in the activity. This book highlights how readers can live fuller, richer, more meaningful lives.

Flow state can be achieved by anyone in a range of activities such as playing a sport, practicing an instrument, gardening, professional work, recreational activities, and more.

Sociology / Social Systems

Drugging the Poor, Dr. Merrill Singer

Nicole’s Rating: 9

About:

Dr. Singer provides a theoretical exploration on how drugs including tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, pharmaceutical drugs, crack/cocaine, and heroin are linked to socioeconomic status on a global scale. This book explores legal and illegal drugs, the social perceptions and similarities between white collar pharmaceutical corporations (aboveground drug industry) contrasted with drug cartels (belowground drug industry), and the infamous “War on Drugs.”

What Makes This Book Unique: 

This book shifted my understanding on drug use, drug marketing, and societal perceptions of drugs. Dr. Singer writes with compassion, depth, and a critical analysis on the history of drugs and the ways substances are marketed (targeted) towards certain demographic groups.

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, by Dr. Sabrina Strings

Nicole’s Rating: 10

About:

Dr. Strings reviews the history of fatphobia, the bias against fat bodies, and the racial, gendered, classist, religious perspectives which uphold anti-Blackness in modern society of which have almost nothing to do with health.

What Makes This Book Unique:

As a self-identified fat and proud person, this book is a beautiful synthesis of how white Western and Eurocentric perceptions of beauty and health perpetuate health bias and body size discrimination. Dr. Strings highlights how fat bias permeates society not only through culture (were you alive during the early 2000’s and recall the glorification of skinniness?) but also health, science, and medical practitioners.

One of my absolute favorite books, I encourage everyone to read this book regardless of your body size or race.

Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, by Dr. Dorothy Roberts

Nicole’s Rating: 10

About:

Dr. Roberts exposes the timely and relevant histories of reproductive oppression, IVF, and forced sterilization as systemically coordinated anti-Black abuses against enslaved Black women and the origins of present-day anti-Black reproductive oppression. Dr. Roberts explores reproductive justice and education on the history of reproductive rights along with calls to action for current political and social issues for people of all backgrounds.

What Makes This Book Unique:

This book enlightened my understanding of race, reproduction, healthcare bias, and the ways white women feminism has failed in the fight for women's liberation. This book can be uncomfortable but is necessary to promote the history which was not taught in schools and on-going concerns including: misogynoir (unique facet of racism and sexism experienced by Black women), failures of white women-led feminism, socioeconomic class struggles, advocacy, slavery, eugenics, birth control, abortion, IVF, surrogacy, welfare, and equity.

Torn Apart, by Dr. Dorothy Roberts

Nicole’s Rating: 9

About:

Dr. Roberts explores the historical and systemic anti-Black and racist origins of the child welfare system. While the child welfare system has a reputation of helping children, Dr. Roberts exposes the call for radical change of racially biased systems relating to foster care, socioeconomic issues, parental/caregiver rights, abolition, and the prison-industrial complex.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

As a mental health therapist with experience working with foster youth and child welfare systems, this book made me grapple with my professional obligations and role in contemporary child welfare systems. Dr. Roberts once again radically broadened my understanding of a complex and racially biased system which requires drastic change, with meaningful examples and calls to action.

Thick: And Other Essays, by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom

Nicole’s Rating: 9

About:

Dr. McMillan Cottom highlights the unique process of Black woman identity development, body size, and classism from her experience as a Black woman from the south.

What Makes This Book Unique:

Dr. McMillan Cottom provides a deep exploration of her experiences of “feeling too Black,” examples of systemic injustice, and the ways Western white-centric culture shape self-identity through forms of media, beauty standards, and socioeconomic status among Black women and bodies that do not align with white values.

Other Nonfiction

7 Steps From Addiction to Sobriety: Step by Step Personal-Growth and Self-Development Guide Used to Recover from 14 Years of Drug Addiction and Prison, by Derrick Moore

Nicole’s Rating: 8.5

About: 

Alaskan author and social media influencer Derrick Moore (AKA, Hardaway Learning) writes about his personal struggles with addiction, prison, and how he reached sobriety.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

Derrick is a talented writer and his unique experiences are rich with retrospection, humility, and a desire for self-growth. Derrick is passionate about inspiring youth and others struggling with substance misuse. 

Derrick explores pivotal moments from his life and how he learned “the hard way” to change his life and relationship with substances, while outlining the tools which helped him reach recovery.

Disability Visibility: First Person Stories From the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong

Nicole’s Rating: 9

About: 

This collection of contemporary essays explores the joys and challenges of life from disabled women, men, and non-binary peoples.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

1 in 5 people in the U.S. live with a disability and disabled people make up the world’s largest minority group. 

These essays provide insight into disability pride and the unique biases in society and healthcare (ableism) which impact disabled peoples. I have learned lots from the advocacy efforts and storytelling skills of the disabled oracle Alice Wong; her perspectives, writings, suggestions, and warnings should not be overlooked.

Influence is Your Superpower: How to Get What You Want Without Compromising Who You Are, by Dr. Zoe Chance

Nicole’s Rating: 8

About: 

Dr. Chance provides practical tools and scientific explanations on ways readers can improve negotiation skills and the art of persuasion.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

Dr. Chance writes about common associations of the words, “influence” and “negotiation,” while exploring how persuasion skills can benefit people in practical situations such as asking for a raise at work, seeking compromise in relationship conflict, and create change. 

Dr. Chance provides insight into how readers can channel charisma and understand how the human brain reacts to perceptions of persuasion, with tools to ethically influence people around you.

The Whole Brain Child, by Dr. Daniel Siegel and Dr. Tina P. Bryson

Nicole’s Rating: 8

About: 

Dr. Siegel and Dr. Bryson outline 12 ways to nurture a developing child’s brain along with a practical age-specific guide which parents, caregivers, and childcare workers can use to foster emotional intelligence, social learning, and problem-solving skills in children from birth through 12-years-old.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

This easy to digest book provides science-backed practices with explanations to help adults understand age-appropriate needs, perceptions, social skills, and (developing) regulation skills of infants and children.

This book provides practical strategies such as connection and redirection, how to help children learn, and how to help a child develop awareness of emotions and emotion-regulation skills while prioritizing fun and positive experiences.

Women, Race, and Class, by Dr. Angela Davis

Nicole’s Rating: 10

About:

Dr. Davis uses a Marxist feminist theoretical approach to examine the history of gender, classism, racism, abolition, and gender-based sexual violence.

What Makes This Book Unique: 

A staple book for developing feminist praxis, Dr. Davis examines the limitations of women’s progress often led by middle- and upper-class white women which have excluded the experiences of women of color, disabled women, and women in non-dominant culture social classes.

Feminism does not mean, “hating all men,” and this book is a wonderful intro for men and women to understand the struggle of women while providing practical calls to actions to reach gender, ethnic, and class equality.

Books I’ll be reading next:

The Viral Underclass, by Dr. X Thrasher

Everything is Tuberculosis, by John Green

Fight Right, by Dr. Julie Gottman

All About Love, by bell hooks

I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy

Thank you to the people who have recommended or shared these books with me, and thank you to readers who spent time reading my reviews.

Do you agree or disagree with what I wrote? Let me know below!

If you like what you saw, read more from me on the Stellar Insight Counseling Mental Health Blog.

About the Author:

Hello! 

My name is Nicole Zegiestowsky, M.S. (she/her) and I am a pre-licensed therapist at Stellar Insight Counseling.

I am an LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent affirming therapist who works with clients struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, and perinatal/postpartum mental health.

If you live in Alaska and are seeking a new therapist, I am accepting new telehealth clients: call me today or use the form below to schedule a free 20-minute initial consultation call to see if we’re a good fit.

I look forward to hearing from you!