Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer

The title for this one says it all, really. With flashbacks to her childhood, and a present-time recounting that spans her first ten years of motherhood and yoga study, Dederer takes us through her own rite of passage. Can it be a rite of passage when it's a memoir written by an adult about her adult life? I'm going to say yes. I'm also going to call it a coming-of-age piece and a truly fun read.

The tagline on her website reads: "What if you turned your life upside down...and wound up with both feet on the ground?"

I identify with Dederer on several levels and I'm convinced that is what made this book so enjoyable for me.  But rather than go on and on about me, I thought I was going to do something even better: answer one of the "reading group" questions from the website. But all of those made me want to talk about me.


So I will just say this: read this book. If you like yoga. If you like memoirs. If you like funny, self-depricating stories where the heroine and her family nearly implode only to jump their proverbial shark and put themselves back on the right track. Read it if you like heart warming, cozy, inspiring tales of a person whose childhood was left-of-center but who grew up to be alright anyway. And certainly read it if you just aren't sure what to read next. Let it inspire you to be brave.