Review of Grace Liang’s book Finding Grace

I have been a long time follower of my fellow fashion blogger Grace Liang. I felt very honored when she asked me to review her first book entitled Finding Grace. This post is my book review of Finding Grace.

Disclosure: Ad. Grace Liang gifted me her book entitled Finding Grace. This post is not endorsed by her. I wrote it entirely on my own and  all opinions are mine and 100% honest.

Grace Liang, an American Woman, Blogger, Transformational Speaker and Author

Many of you probably know Grace Liang, the Michigan blogger at Activate your Inner Power from her former fashion blog Color and Grace. At least from my weekly Top of the World Style linkup parties, where she has been a regular guest. Here she often was the Readers’ Fav.

Grace Liang is not only a petite style blogger and fashion enthusiast, but also a transformational speaker, woman entrepreneur,  and obsessed with emotional fitness.

Grace now finished her first book, which will be launched on January 14. I asked her for a pre-launch copy for review.

Grace’s Book Finding Grace

A Modern Fairy Tale

Grace Liang’s book is like a Mille Feuille (1000 sheets). This means like this delicious French cake of several layers of puff pastry with butter cream in-between. Her book is a book of love; a modern fairy tale of a Chinese girl growing up in rural China in a poor dysfunctional family. She leaves her village for a big megacity where she meets her Prince from another New World. She follows him into his world, and marries him. Then she gets a functional American family and lives a great life, they both enjoy. Traditional fairy tales would end here with the sentence “they lived happily ever after.”

However, modern fairy tales tend to have a sad end. In Grace’s case, a rare (and hence not well researched) disease took her man – as she calls him – away way too soon.

Life After Death

Other layers are, for example, the struggle with acceptance, dealing and understanding of death; her journey thru the different stages of the grievance process with the little victories and huge fallbacks along the long, difficult way, and turning her life upside-down, not only from being a loving wife and step-mother to a widow with stepchildren, but also from a hobby blogger and school teacher to a professional blogger, successful business woman helping others to grow thru their grieving process. These layers are also interweaved with learning to be ok with not being ok, and learning to be alone, but not feeling lonely and being ok with this acceptance despite of the loss of a great loving partnership.

The Cruelty of Things Beyond Control

The next layer is about the cruelty of things beyond the own control and how to deal with not being in control. This layer is a societal and cultural one. It is probably the hardest one for a grieving person as it is beyond the griever’s control.

For example, the perceptions of society towards widows who immigrated for a love marriage; but also the perceptions of a widow’s former fellow-citizens towards those who left their (former) home country. Grace’s discussion of cultural differences provides great insight into the diversity of humankind. It also helps understanding of what made America great: Adopting the best of each culture while acknowledging that the boundaries of one’s own freedom are where the boundaries of the next person’s freedom start.

Self-Discovery, Coping and Self-Empowerment

The book is an eye-opener with respect to self-discovery.  She describes the empowerment of separating oneself from the (painful and/or angry) emotions to open up for a new (different) life ahead. It helps not to get stuck in the beautiful memories of the old life that one will never have again. Part of this process is also the discovery that the only place to live in is the own body. Consequently, one has to take care of its physical and emotional fitness.

Grace describes how watching your emotions teaches you about who you are; or even how taking the observer’s position can calm you down.  Acknowledging the thoughts, telling your brain, “yes, thanks for the reminder, but this is not the right moment. Look at the great scenery. Smell the roses of summer. Taste the berry and cherry flavor of this wine. Listen to the chirping of the cricket and feel the warm sunshine and the wind’s play with your hair and gorgeous silk dress on your skin.”

Who Would Enjoy Reading Finding Grace

Grace gracefully manages to convey her messages on finding yourself in form of her own diary with narrative reflections from a later point of view. The reflections may be very helpful for everyone who lost a loved one or who had a major loss of any kind. The after reflections also put the different phases (and their repetition) of the grievance process into context.

Where to Buy Finding Grace

The official launch day of her book on Amazon is January 14. On her Instagram account, Grace asked to please wait to purchase her book until the official launch so it will count towards her making the bestseller list.

Book Review of Finding Grace in a Nutshell

Grace Liang’s book is a Must-read for everyone who is going thru a substantial life change, not only those who lost a loved one. It is a guide to finding yourself and living a happy life on your own terms. Like Coco Chanel said

Gace’s story is so enlightening; it should be on the reading list in college classes on literature of other cultures as well.

My mindset was that the worst had already happened; there was nothing left to be afraid of. – Grace Liang

You may be also interested in reading my review of Christina Chiu’s book Beauty.

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