In June, she tackles 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan, PhD. Her July chapter is six sentences long about how she and her husband should have more sex. Presumably, that is why this month's chapter was so short: she was otherwise occupied.

In August, this 11-sentence chapter about being "relaxed and slipping on my self-improvement project" leads the reader to believe she let July's project creep into August. In September, she and her family go on a two-week vacation to Tuscany. She half-heartedly reads The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. After this vacation, there is a startling $148 in their bank account and they are delinquent on all their bills including being two months behind in preschool payments.

In October she reads Suze Orman's The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Advice So You Can Stop Worrying. She lowers her credit card's annual percentage rate (APR) with one phone call and attends a conference. In November she sees Deepak Chopra and reads his book Life After Death: The Burden of Proof. In December she attends a Sylvia Browne (psychic) talk.

Beth's journey into the world of self-help is wonderful. The not-quite-hidden disgust in her voice when describing the gender stereotyping of the Mars-Venus book is fabulous. After reading Gray's first anecdote she writes, "so far he sounds like a total dick." She calls herself a "knee-jerk Godophobe...in a deity-heavy self-help world." You can't buy a turn of phrase like that.

She tries valiantly to minimize her disdain for so many of the other "gurus," but her personality comes through in her writing too much to disguise her true feelings. Her frank appraisal of all the motivational speakers is often laugh-out-loud funny.

She describes her precocious young son's tantrums with an honesty that is painful to read, yet she is able to make it play like a dark comedy.

Somewhere deep inside, it hits me that this whole thing would probably make a pretty choice YouTube clip. My sad, frustrated mom-face scrambling for a solution while getting taunted by someone who wasn't born until 2002...And it would be funny if I found it on YouTube, as opposed to its way-too-frequent rotation on MeTube.

She also has some moments of startling clarity and insight.

A sense of despair mounts as I think about the very real work he did versus this personal growth "work" I am paying over a thousand dollars to do. My parents were the first in their families to go to college, and here I am, flying halfway across the country to hammer out my "personal mission statement." It seems like the curse of a certain class, having the free time and energy to devote to your "emotional bank account" and "synergistic communication."

After the Richard Simmons cruise, however, there is a deflation in the narrator's voice. Her exuberance and optimism fade a bit and the entire book seems to turn morose. The humor is more biting than light-hearted. The cold hard reality of being broke seems to set in. I couldn't help but mentally add up the money she was spending during the course of this year ($10,000) while not holding a steady job.