cover image The Overfunctioning Woman's Handbook: Uncommon Sense to Dal with Impossible Jobs and Impossible People

The Overfunctioning Woman's Handbook: Uncommon Sense to Dal with Impossible Jobs and Impossible People

Rosalynn Rivkin. Oinfroin Media, $0 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-9796807-0-0

This dense guide to ""breaking away from impossible expectations, impossible jobs and impossible people"" claims, on the back cover, that ""If you don't have time to read this book, you need this book."" Unfortunately, that's the tome's central problem: the depth of the text is undercut by an unwieldy design; if there was ever a book that needed more bullet points and fewer chapters, this is it. It's too bad, as there is meaty writing here for those with the patience to find it; in particular, authors Rivkin and Park (the former a psychotherapist, the latter an overfunctioning writer-artist-advocate-farmer-mom-etc.) shine in their chapters on identifying and dealing with difficult people, who are broken down succinctly and effectively into ""red flags"" (demanding, self-serving, reality-denying) and ""yellow flags"" (blame others, avoid conflict and self-reflection). The authors are also remarkably realistic when compared to other self-helps, acknowledging that many people won't or can't be changed, and that life must go on among them. Rivkin and Rubin's primer for the overly committed is worthwhile reading-assuming one has time to commit to it.