Rachel Reviews: Thrive in Chaos by Jace Parker

I loved this book and everything that it sets out to do. I spent my time reading it, sagely nodding at the good sense contained in it and reflecting on how experience shapes us into the people we are, not always for the better in some cases.

Luckily, this is not the case in Jace Parker's experience at all. He has taken the darker elements of life and remoulded it into this wonderful book. A crime scene operative, Jace has seen some pretty grim things in his life and as had to carry that around with him. Still does, I imagine. Having a job where he is confronting death every day in its most savage manifestations means that he needs to keep himself together. In writing this book, he has decided to share how he has done just that.

He uses examples from his life to explain that he has not always been perfect and that some lessons are hard learnt but essentially, they don't have to make up the whole picture, of you, your life and who you are and there are ways of coping.

This is not didactic: it is funny, it is honest, it is full of human experience, it is straight-talking. I couldn't help it but once I knew that he was Scottish, I imagined it in the voice of a gruff Glaswegian and enjoyed my reading of it all the more for this; it's difficult not to imagine him as this as his writing is very much in the voice of a mentor. In fact, he specifically states himself that this is him, talking to you, through the page, as he is. I liked that about it. It gave the book an authenticity and a validity which instilled empowerment in me as a reader. It's not highbrow - it's as it is according to Jace and he cites his reasoning for how he has reached these conclusions, the methods that worked for him and why he thinks they're important to try along with strategies for confronting the sh*t that life throws at you.

I loved it. Pragmatic but empathetic, it was like having a strong arm placed around your shoulder while a gravelly voice says softly, "Now. Let me give you some guidance, lassie."

I would highly recommend this book.

Rachel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!

This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery where I was privileged to read it as an ARC: