The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Title: The Secret

Author: Rhonda Byrne

# pages: 184

Date published: 2006

Genre: non-fiction (psychology)

Rating:

(I have mixed feelings)

First Sentence:

“A year ago, my life had collapsed around me.”

What Is It All About? Here’s what I got out of The Secret—like attracts like. Byrne and the others that swear by this “secret” call this the law of attraction. In the past, I believe others have called it karma. But call it whatever you want, I do believe that whatever you put out there, you will receive the same in return (up to a point anyway). In other words, if you’re a positive person, you most likely attract positive people and you see the things that happen to you in a positive light rather than a negative one. The Secret is basically a rehashing of the power of positive thinking. And Byrne does write that The Secret is nothing new (just the opposite, in fact).

While I agree with the underlying concept, I didn’t care for the slant of this book. The Secret (the book, not the philosophy) seemed a bit materialistic to me. But then again, I’m not trying to attract a new car, so what do I know? I have a hard time believing that just visualizing a million dollars is going to make it fall into my lap. Don’t you think that might require some kind of action on my part? Some kind of work? I do. And the whole idea of acting as if I were already a millionaire in order to attract this million dollars? Uh. Does anyone else see a problem with this? Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t this book like a mega-bestseller at some point? Huh…that could explain a few things.

But the thing that really annoyed me was the health chapter. I really don’t believe that people get sick because they’ve attracted sickness to themselves through their thought processes. And maybe that’s not what Byrne is really saying, but that’s how it came across to me. I do believe that if you’re sick (with a cold or something more serious) that negative thinking is likely to make you feel worse, but come on, people don’t get cancer because they read or think obsessively about cancer. People don’t catch a cold by commiserating with a co-worker about their illness (now the proximity to the co-worker and their cold virus is a whole different story, but you get what I’m saying).

Possibly I missed the point. But if nothing else, The Secret did remind me to ditch the gloom and doom. And it has been able to keep me upbeat and positive since reading the book about a week ago. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Let’s give people a variety of opinions! If you've reviewed this book (or a book by this author), leave me a link to your review in the comments and I'll link to your review, too!