This little, in every sense, book is 99 pages long. That's with large type, lines spaced well-apart. Reading in a rather studious manner, it was a 45 minutes read.
Read Page 90 and you'll get the whole message, only with less sentiment,
sunrises, sunsets, or moist-eye mentions, in a quick 1-2-3 outline style.
A whole page? 23 words would do: If you're in a valley (a bad place), apply
that experience while you envision the peak (a good place) you want to be.
PEAKS AND VALLEYS' format laces together a parable format (think sensei and grasshopper-acolyte) for passing on wisdom with loads of sentimentality ('His eyes moistened' kept repeating) and renderings of too-many too-well-worn platitudes over and over again. Far more fluff than facts.
Its platitudes are recognizable as common sense today. Or trite. Most are found in many self-help books already. There are, by Amazonian count, 30,548 such books
on the racks waiting to point the way to wherever.
Say, here's a tip: Writing Successful Self-Help and How-To Books (Wiley Books for Writers Series) Written by Jean Marie Stine. I've read her very well-done book - New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing There's a workbook book too. Maybe you can write a book and next for V&P will be a map.
(Oh, if you write that book and it doesn't sell, well, there's How to Heal a Broken Heart in 30 Days: A Day-by-Day Guide to Saying Good-bye and Getting On With Your Life (I actually read it. It kept its promise. Gave it 5-Stars!)
The only thing I found remarkable in P&V is that, as proclaimed on the back inside flap, Dr. Johnson's formula has sold over 46-million copies of his find happiness/ success/whatever books in 47 languages.
If you're past a ninth-grade reading level (where this book seems aimed in style and grammar), you might like a better though more challenging, sophisticated read: Just type in 'self help' in the book search window at Amazon; they have a wide variety of such books, enough to fit most-every specific need. When you search, note that many reviewers complain of the old same-old same-old repetition of advice. Sorta like P&V struck me.
I truly hate writing a negative review. So I followed a thread in the book which solicited comments and suggestions: An email address. After reading about Dr. Johnson's impressive Harvard credentials and 46,000,000 books sold in 47 languages, I asked if I missed something. Even included a copy of my review
(this one is a bit revised). Alas, no reply.