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Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment
What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to get in touch with her spiritual side? Not what you’d expect . . . When Suzanne Morrison decides to travel to Bali for a two-month yoga retreat, she wants nothing more than to be transformed from a twenty-five-year-old with a crippling fear of death into her enchanting yoga teacher, Indra—a woman who seems to have found it love, self, and God. But things don’t go quite as expected. Once in Bali, she finds that her beloved yoga teacher and all of her yogamates wake up every morning to drink a large, steaming mug . . . of their own urine. Sugar is a mortal sin. Spirits inhabit kitchen appliances. And the more she tries to find her higher self, the more she faces her cynical, egomaniacal, cigarette-, wine-, and chocolate-craving lower self. Yoga Bitch chronicles Suzanne’s hilarious adventures and misadventures as an aspiring yogi who might be just a bit too skeptical to drink the Kool-Aid. But along the way she discovers that no spiritual effort is wasted; even if her yoga retreat doesn’t turn her into the gorgeously calm, wise believer she hopes it will, it does plant seeds that continue to blossom in surprising ways over the next decade of her life.
354 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
239 people are currently reading
3570 people want to read
About the author
Suzanne Morrison
3 books89 followersSuzanne Morrison’s first memoir, Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment, was published by Random House/Three Rivers Press in August 2011 and will be translated into Dutch, German, Russian, Hebrew, and Serbian. Yoga Bitch was named a must-read by the Los Angeles Times and New York Magazine, and was one of Crosscut's "Best Northwest Books of 2011." Yoga Bitch had its start as a long-running one-woman show of the same title, which played in New York, London, across the country and around the world. A 2009 and 2010 recipient of 4Culture and Artist Trust grants for solo performance, Suzanne is developing a new show, Optimism, about her adolescent fascination with Ted Bundy, who was a friend of her parents, and she’s at work on a new memoir, Your Own Personal Alcatraz, about coming of age on an island near Seattle and the perils of love. You can find Suzanne at the Huffington Post, where she blogs about the reading life, and at her own blog, where she writes about absolutely everything she’s reading, writing, and rehearsing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 497 reviews
October 20, 2011
I grew up in the same town as Suzanne Morrison; went to the same high school, and even the same church I think, so it was really interesting for me reading her memoir. I too am an actor and writer, and I've recently found my way back to a yoga practice, so I identified with many aspects of her journey.
Yoga Bitch read sort of like a self-help manual for me. Suzanne's journey, and the lessons she has learned acted kind of like signposts for me. "Watch out for this one, Catherine, this one could be big for you."
I breezed through this book-it was fun to read. More importantly though, it's an example of someone looking back at her experiences with wit and humility, fearlessly searching for the lesson. We live in a world lacking in self-awareness. I don't think that most people have the courage to look at their path and ask if they're on the right one. No one wants to question their integrity or motives or whether they acted like the best version of themselves. Suzanne does that with courage. It's inspiring.
Yoga Bitch read sort of like a self-help manual for me. Suzanne's journey, and the lessons she has learned acted kind of like signposts for me. "Watch out for this one, Catherine, this one could be big for you."
I breezed through this book-it was fun to read. More importantly though, it's an example of someone looking back at her experiences with wit and humility, fearlessly searching for the lesson. We live in a world lacking in self-awareness. I don't think that most people have the courage to look at their path and ask if they're on the right one. No one wants to question their integrity or motives or whether they acted like the best version of themselves. Suzanne does that with courage. It's inspiring.
February 12, 2012
Some yoga memoirs spend a lot of time trying to understand yoga. This is not one of those. Part "Poser" but mostly "Eat, Pray, Love," Yoga Bitch is really only nominally about yoga. It's much more about how a coddled 25 year-old on the verge of independence, having given up her family's Catholicism but desperately searching for some new structure and leader, seeks to find herself in the mystical rituals of yoga. About what happens when the people we idolize turn out to be human. About the old saying, "Wherever you go, you'll still be there." And about just how far we'll go for approval. It's funny, narcissistic, uneven, sarcastic, and very, very honest. "Is this all just ritualized narcissism, dolled up to look like a series of virtues, an inner science, a path to God?" Morrison asks toward the end of the book, when her disillusionment is getting the best of her. There's no answer, but she's asking good questions. I wish I could give it 3 and a half stars, but since the author's from Seattle, I'll round up.
June 13, 2012
What is it about yoga memoirs as of late? They are all deeply moving while at the same time being incredibly funny. I love it! Suzanne Morrison is fantastically funny and there is so much of her experience with her yoga teacher training that I can relate to. Although I have to say that there were no "piss drinkers" in my class (at least not that I know of... hmmm there was that one person whom I thought always smelled a little of... no, no I am pretty sure there were no piss drinkers in my yoga teacher training).
At one point while reading this book (I will admit it, it was when the farting in class came up in the book) that I was laughing so hard that my husband had to ask me what the heck I was doing and when I replied that I was reading about honking like Ganesha I think he sort of rolled his eyes.
Beside being truly entertaining this book spoke a little to the falseness yoga can sometimes foster in some of the students and teachers. I have to admit the more I paid for yoga the more disconnected I felt from my yoga. I dislike the commercialization of yoga and yet I make handmade yoga mat bags and sell them. I much like Morrison, feel that there is this HUGE contradiction in the way Americans (and most likely other people around the world) practice yoga. I have learned to accept that it is just a reality of life and of yoga. Some of us just feel the call of all the "shiny happy things" more than others.
Besides the cigarette smoking, I really like Morrison as a person (at least as the person she comes across in her writing I do not actually know her...). I learned a lot from her book, mainly that we really are all the same when it comes down to it, we even experience spiritual journeys in very similar ways.
Read this book to laugh, to think and to inspire you to make your practice your own.
At one point while reading this book (I will admit it, it was when the farting in class came up in the book) that I was laughing so hard that my husband had to ask me what the heck I was doing and when I replied that I was reading about honking like Ganesha I think he sort of rolled his eyes.
Beside being truly entertaining this book spoke a little to the falseness yoga can sometimes foster in some of the students and teachers. I have to admit the more I paid for yoga the more disconnected I felt from my yoga. I dislike the commercialization of yoga and yet I make handmade yoga mat bags and sell them. I much like Morrison, feel that there is this HUGE contradiction in the way Americans (and most likely other people around the world) practice yoga. I have learned to accept that it is just a reality of life and of yoga. Some of us just feel the call of all the "shiny happy things" more than others.
Besides the cigarette smoking, I really like Morrison as a person (at least as the person she comes across in her writing I do not actually know her...). I learned a lot from her book, mainly that we really are all the same when it comes down to it, we even experience spiritual journeys in very similar ways.
Read this book to laugh, to think and to inspire you to make your practice your own.
October 26, 2011
i'm just gonna say straight up that i bet i would have liked this book more if i did (or knew anything about) yoga. if you are a yoga person, take this review with a grain of salt.
my main problem with this book has nothing to do with my knowledge of yoga though. my main problem is that i thought the book was structured in a really weird way that didn't really make any sense to me. i cracked the book open (i put it on hold at the library based on a review i read, so i hadn't seen it before i started reading it) & was really taken aback by the fact that it was basically double-spaced, like an undergraduate research paper. i was like, "what the fuck? this is only going to take me an hour to read." i flipped through the rest of the book & found that some it was double-spaced & some of it was a normal paperback book layout.
i read on & discovered that the normal paperback book layout, which makes up the majority of the book, is in fact suzanne's diary from the two months she spend studying yoga in bali when she was 25 years old. apparently her teachers recommended that all the students keep a journal during their retreat & suzanne took this very seriously. i mean...supposedly. i keep a journal & maybe i'm just a lazy slacker but my journal doesn't really have a narrative like suzanne's supposedly does, i don't recount detailed conversations complete with dialogue tags, i don't build up narrative tensions & suspense...possibly the book is BASED on suzanne's journal, but surely it was reconstructed & rewritten? i don't know.
the double-spaced parts in-between were...i don't know what the fuck they were. chapter breaks? they really served no purpose whatsoever except for suzanne to be like, "then when i moved to new york, one day this thing happened that tangentially relates to this thing i wrote about in my journal."
if the book really is just suzanne's bali journal, unedited, that's cool & everything, but it makes me hate the double-spaced parts even more. because they are just a few pages long & they are fucking double-spaced! it's so distracting! i get maybe she wanted to make them look different to differentiate them from the journal but couldn't she have used a slightly different font or maybe employed a nice border seguing between the time frames or something? the double spacing was unspeakably irritating.
& i am just going to spoil this because it was so fucking annoying: the boyfriend that suzanne keeps writing about, the one she is going to move to new york to be with? yeah. that doesn't work out. the sailor she keeps writing about, the one who reads a lot & is 18 years older than her? yeah, they get married eventually. even though they met when he was 40 & she was 22, which is pretty icky. had i known that the whole book was leading up to this weird "reader, i married him" love story, i might not have read it.
i mean, there were elements of this book that were thoroughly amusing, entertaining, insightful, etc. but in the end, it's about a 25-year-old american woman who drops a couple thousand bucks to go on a yoga retreat in bali. think it through.
my main problem with this book has nothing to do with my knowledge of yoga though. my main problem is that i thought the book was structured in a really weird way that didn't really make any sense to me. i cracked the book open (i put it on hold at the library based on a review i read, so i hadn't seen it before i started reading it) & was really taken aback by the fact that it was basically double-spaced, like an undergraduate research paper. i was like, "what the fuck? this is only going to take me an hour to read." i flipped through the rest of the book & found that some it was double-spaced & some of it was a normal paperback book layout.
i read on & discovered that the normal paperback book layout, which makes up the majority of the book, is in fact suzanne's diary from the two months she spend studying yoga in bali when she was 25 years old. apparently her teachers recommended that all the students keep a journal during their retreat & suzanne took this very seriously. i mean...supposedly. i keep a journal & maybe i'm just a lazy slacker but my journal doesn't really have a narrative like suzanne's supposedly does, i don't recount detailed conversations complete with dialogue tags, i don't build up narrative tensions & suspense...possibly the book is BASED on suzanne's journal, but surely it was reconstructed & rewritten? i don't know.
the double-spaced parts in-between were...i don't know what the fuck they were. chapter breaks? they really served no purpose whatsoever except for suzanne to be like, "then when i moved to new york, one day this thing happened that tangentially relates to this thing i wrote about in my journal."
if the book really is just suzanne's bali journal, unedited, that's cool & everything, but it makes me hate the double-spaced parts even more. because they are just a few pages long & they are fucking double-spaced! it's so distracting! i get maybe she wanted to make them look different to differentiate them from the journal but couldn't she have used a slightly different font or maybe employed a nice border seguing between the time frames or something? the double spacing was unspeakably irritating.
& i am just going to spoil this because it was so fucking annoying: the boyfriend that suzanne keeps writing about, the one she is going to move to new york to be with? yeah. that doesn't work out. the sailor she keeps writing about, the one who reads a lot & is 18 years older than her? yeah, they get married eventually. even though they met when he was 40 & she was 22, which is pretty icky. had i known that the whole book was leading up to this weird "reader, i married him" love story, i might not have read it.
i mean, there were elements of this book that were thoroughly amusing, entertaining, insightful, etc. but in the end, it's about a 25-year-old american woman who drops a couple thousand bucks to go on a yoga retreat in bali. think it through.
December 16, 2024
I randomly found this book at a hotel I was staying at in Portland. I practice yoga regularly and I used to teach too, so this book really stood out to me. I loved reading about the author’s journey through her teacher training and deepening her own spiritual practice!
March 2, 2012
Funny, interesting, and very genuine.
What I liked best is that there's no grand transformation in the author -- just a very real experience, told in a very real voice. Which makes Yoga Bitch as approachable as it is entertaining. I seriously laughed out loud in several places and had to put the book down until I could catch my breath. But underneath it all is Morrison's fearless storytelling about a time of confusion, growth, and slow steps to a very real sort of transformation.
What I liked best is that there's no grand transformation in the author -- just a very real experience, told in a very real voice. Which makes Yoga Bitch as approachable as it is entertaining. I seriously laughed out loud in several places and had to put the book down until I could catch my breath. But underneath it all is Morrison's fearless storytelling about a time of confusion, growth, and slow steps to a very real sort of transformation.
September 18, 2011
Overall I was pretty unimpressed with this book. The premise was that the author Suzanne Morrison hoped that yoga would turn her from a cynical, skeptical, smoker into an enlightened "perfect" yogi. After signing up for some yoga classes she finds that she loves it and when her favorite teacher invites her to come to Bali for a 2 month yoga teacher training she immediately starts saving up for it. But, during the retreat Suzanne finds that her connection with her favorite teacher starts to unravel, and although she makes some great friends she finds she's the same person at the end of the retreat - not the perfect yogi she envisioned. Parts of it are OK, but some of the chapters are really disjointed and rambling. In the end I was just forcing myself to finish it since I had read so much.
August 18, 2011
Suzanne Morrison is a serious student of yoga. Her pursuit of excellence and self-discipline is a serious pursuit. When she decides to follow her beloved mentors to Bali for an intense training program, she puts her whole heart into it. With rigorous practice she hopes to attain enlightenment, at least enough to make some important decisions about the direction of her life.
When she encounters the reality of her situation--cut off from family, friends, meat, sugar, caffeine and cigarettes, and stranded among people so humorlessly devoted to attaining a higher level of awareness that they don't see the inherent ickiness of drinking their own urine--Morrison cracks. And when she cracks, her story becomes deeply funny. Belly-laugh funny.
This book describes (in beautiful prose style - meticulously, joyously detailed and specific) one of those adventures in which the heroine falls short of her heart's desire, yet that failure proves to be a necessary and significant step on the road to real understanding. Morrison's daily disasters and triumphs point out the difficulty we encounter when our objective turns out to be so lofty that every grasp at it further demonstrates the limits of human capacity.
What could have been a plodding story about a young woman discovering that her ideals are just a little bit crazy, and yet terribly important in sustaining joy, is transformed by Morrison's wit and energy into something marvelous to behold. The story sails along from one hilarious moment to the next. Our heroine learns to embrace the grotty, unkempt part of the soul that resists all grooming and training. We are, ultimately, both soul and body. Morrison contrasts our aspirations with our reality and finds forgiveness, employing an astonishing charm and intelligence.
Buy this book.
When she encounters the reality of her situation--cut off from family, friends, meat, sugar, caffeine and cigarettes, and stranded among people so humorlessly devoted to attaining a higher level of awareness that they don't see the inherent ickiness of drinking their own urine--Morrison cracks. And when she cracks, her story becomes deeply funny. Belly-laugh funny.
This book describes (in beautiful prose style - meticulously, joyously detailed and specific) one of those adventures in which the heroine falls short of her heart's desire, yet that failure proves to be a necessary and significant step on the road to real understanding. Morrison's daily disasters and triumphs point out the difficulty we encounter when our objective turns out to be so lofty that every grasp at it further demonstrates the limits of human capacity.
What could have been a plodding story about a young woman discovering that her ideals are just a little bit crazy, and yet terribly important in sustaining joy, is transformed by Morrison's wit and energy into something marvelous to behold. The story sails along from one hilarious moment to the next. Our heroine learns to embrace the grotty, unkempt part of the soul that resists all grooming and training. We are, ultimately, both soul and body. Morrison contrasts our aspirations with our reality and finds forgiveness, employing an astonishing charm and intelligence.
Buy this book.
March 5, 2012
Yawn. Many of these yoga memoirs are cookie-cutter copies of Eat, Pray, Love, and I'm simply not interested in such navel gazing.
August 13, 2017
2.5-3⭐️ read. Easy, a bit of a Bridget Jones does yoga but not quite as good.
January 18, 2012
I LOVED this book. I couldn't stop laughing, it was hilarious! I found myself easily relating to both the protagonist as well as the situations in the book. The author put a great spin on many subjects that could have been really heavy, and not only made you laugh, but also made you think. I started reading it to my partner (he isn't at all into yoga) and he laughed and thought it was great. We're about half-way through it so far. His comment: "You know, you wouldn't have to be into that stuff (sic) in order to enjoy this book" So there you go, from a guy who is not into new agey woowoo (his words). I agree with that statement, that while yoga types would definitely get a bigger kick out of it, one need not be a yogi to fall for this book.
I will note that the book jumped around a bit, probably about halfway through to the end, back in forth in dates, times and places. A little confusing at times. But all in all, a fantastic read and even though I just finished it, I'm excited to continue re-reading where I left off with my partner. I couldn't wait for him and just had to finish it! :)
Any disappointment? The book was awesome. However,of course you want the main character to be perfect and wonderful, and the story to go a certain way. But, this wasn't like that. This was very real story, about a woman who is finding herself. And that's not always a pretty sight. It's a little hard not to judge the protagonist a little when things start going south during her retreat. It was difficult to not to want to give her a good shake (because she was acting like a spoiled brat LOL) and I felt disappointed in her results after completing her retreat. It just seemed like a childish response, and I guess I just wasn't buying it. But, that being said, it just means that she is human, and as she did note in the story that her's wasn't the typical "once was lost, now is found" type of tale. So I can appreciate that. She really does bare all of herself for the world to see- her light and her shadows. That was refreshing and still very much inspiring. You felt that she was being very truthful to you, the reader, and I applaud that. It is a very "This is me. All of me. Take it or leave it" approach and I'm thankful for her for sharing it like that. I am so glad I picked up this quest of Suzanne's and thrilled that I had so many great laughs, but also did a lot of pondering as well. I dogeared a lot of pages so I could go back and review them.
I will note that the book jumped around a bit, probably about halfway through to the end, back in forth in dates, times and places. A little confusing at times. But all in all, a fantastic read and even though I just finished it, I'm excited to continue re-reading where I left off with my partner. I couldn't wait for him and just had to finish it! :)
Any disappointment? The book was awesome. However,of course you want the main character to be perfect and wonderful, and the story to go a certain way. But, this wasn't like that. This was very real story, about a woman who is finding herself. And that's not always a pretty sight. It's a little hard not to judge the protagonist a little when things start going south during her retreat. It was difficult to not to want to give her a good shake (because she was acting like a spoiled brat LOL) and I felt disappointed in her results after completing her retreat. It just seemed like a childish response, and I guess I just wasn't buying it. But, that being said, it just means that she is human, and as she did note in the story that her's wasn't the typical "once was lost, now is found" type of tale. So I can appreciate that. She really does bare all of herself for the world to see- her light and her shadows. That was refreshing and still very much inspiring. You felt that she was being very truthful to you, the reader, and I applaud that. It is a very "This is me. All of me. Take it or leave it" approach and I'm thankful for her for sharing it like that. I am so glad I picked up this quest of Suzanne's and thrilled that I had so many great laughs, but also did a lot of pondering as well. I dogeared a lot of pages so I could go back and review them.
March 29, 2016
Y is for Yoga Bitch by Suzanne Morrison. The book says she’s a cynical smoker who goes on a 2 month yoga retreat to get in touch with her spiritual side. The problem I have with books who advertise ‘I’m cynical and have problems’ and then resolve all the problems by the end of the book already had one foot in the door.
One memoir I read about a woman who decided to change her life with magazines complained about her terrible relationships but she was already in therapy and had a quality boyfriend candidate waiting in the wings. No memoir has someone go from totally-flawed to totally-fixed. There’s always some groundwork.
Morrison was the same because while she was a cynical coffee-loving smoker, she was also a yoga junkie before she left. She idolized her teacher and loved doing yoga so she was open to spiritual awakening no matter how agnostic she proclaimed to be. One of her reoccurring points is that she enjoys the theatricality of religion. Like many of us, she probably just wants something she can believe in.
She gradually warmed to the ideas and practices of people drinking the Kool-Aid (among other things). When she became the perfect yoga student with meditation, concentration, and a seizure-like vision, I wasn’t that shocked. The beginnings of that were already there. You can tell by the way she talks about the female yoga teacher she adores and idolizes her in the beginning. Her thirst for approval was obvious but not unfamiliar.
Eventually the teacher is revealed to be flawed and human. Morrison claims to enjoy knocking her off the pedestal and kicking her former idol. She wanted something to believe in but her cynicism loved that this latest ‘god’ wasn’t perfect.
At the end Morrison seems to be unchanged but in retrospect she admits to being transformed in a way she didn’t realize yet. Morrison has a good voice and this was an interesting story to tell.
One memoir I read about a woman who decided to change her life with magazines complained about her terrible relationships but she was already in therapy and had a quality boyfriend candidate waiting in the wings. No memoir has someone go from totally-flawed to totally-fixed. There’s always some groundwork.
Morrison was the same because while she was a cynical coffee-loving smoker, she was also a yoga junkie before she left. She idolized her teacher and loved doing yoga so she was open to spiritual awakening no matter how agnostic she proclaimed to be. One of her reoccurring points is that she enjoys the theatricality of religion. Like many of us, she probably just wants something she can believe in.
She gradually warmed to the ideas and practices of people drinking the Kool-Aid (among other things). When she became the perfect yoga student with meditation, concentration, and a seizure-like vision, I wasn’t that shocked. The beginnings of that were already there. You can tell by the way she talks about the female yoga teacher she adores and idolizes her in the beginning. Her thirst for approval was obvious but not unfamiliar.
Eventually the teacher is revealed to be flawed and human. Morrison claims to enjoy knocking her off the pedestal and kicking her former idol. She wanted something to believe in but her cynicism loved that this latest ‘god’ wasn’t perfect.
At the end Morrison seems to be unchanged but in retrospect she admits to being transformed in a way she didn’t realize yet. Morrison has a good voice and this was an interesting story to tell.
October 11, 2011
slightly interesting for a while as she takes off on a yoga pilgrimage to Bali during a time of personal upheaval (notably, pending move from Seattle to NYC with boyfriend about whom she is somewhat unsure).
I hung in there a long time, strung along by the occasional interesting observation about group dynamics including struggle for the guru teacher's attention and approval, thoughts about "how would I explain [some unusual belief or practice] to friends or family back home" and the like, but ultimately I couldn't finish the book. Too much.......
(a) blow by blow recap of ostensibly witty snide comments she makes that show how she's more savvy than the credulous muddle-brained yoga fanatics she finds herself surrounded by
(b) bathroom humor fascination -- one long long recurring subplot for instance has to do with whether (in the end, the answer is yes) she will follow the group's advice to drink her own urine as a healing/cleansing ritual. There's an interesting essay in that probably, in terms of whether you require systematic studies vs. testimonials before trying something, whether disgust reactions are culture-bound or universal, and so on, but instead she just goes on on seemingly forever in the vein of approximately "so I'm surrounded by pissdrinkers! That's right, they drink their own pee. I don't know about you, but pee in my household was not for drinking. You actually close the door before peeing. Not these pissdrinkers, though. They drink it like a fine pinot. Pissdrinkers, I tell you" and so on and so on.
She is equally preoccupied with people's passing gas, GI illnesses, etc. etc. Not funny or enjoyable after a while.
I hung in there a long time, strung along by the occasional interesting observation about group dynamics including struggle for the guru teacher's attention and approval, thoughts about "how would I explain [some unusual belief or practice] to friends or family back home" and the like, but ultimately I couldn't finish the book. Too much.......
(a) blow by blow recap of ostensibly witty snide comments she makes that show how she's more savvy than the credulous muddle-brained yoga fanatics she finds herself surrounded by
(b) bathroom humor fascination -- one long long recurring subplot for instance has to do with whether (in the end, the answer is yes) she will follow the group's advice to drink her own urine as a healing/cleansing ritual. There's an interesting essay in that probably, in terms of whether you require systematic studies vs. testimonials before trying something, whether disgust reactions are culture-bound or universal, and so on, but instead she just goes on on seemingly forever in the vein of approximately "so I'm surrounded by pissdrinkers! That's right, they drink their own pee. I don't know about you, but pee in my household was not for drinking. You actually close the door before peeing. Not these pissdrinkers, though. They drink it like a fine pinot. Pissdrinkers, I tell you" and so on and so on.
She is equally preoccupied with people's passing gas, GI illnesses, etc. etc. Not funny or enjoyable after a while.
October 23, 2011
I will say it: I loved Eat, Pray, Love -- but a lot of people rolled their eyes at that book. If you did, then *this* is the book for you.
It's such an easy comparison to make that it makes me feel cheap and unoriginal, but it's also a nice quick sort of shorthand if you've read E/P/L.
At the beginning, I found it witty, wanting to be funny, mildly amusing and mildly interesting. Spiritual journeys and memoirs have never really been my thing, so I wasn't that intrigued. Still, I kept reading (mostly because I was so relieved to be out of the endless Game of Thrones book I'd just finished.)
It kept getting more and more real and more and more amusing until I found myself alternately laughing out loud and utterly swept up in this woman's personal struggles.
In the end, I loved it -- the honest search for meaning, the envy and the vitriolic gossip sessions with her yogamates, the weird pee-drinking and other yoga-related rituals, and the crazy boomerang binges on brownies and booze, and most of all the vulnerability she revealed.
Loved this one.
It's such an easy comparison to make that it makes me feel cheap and unoriginal, but it's also a nice quick sort of shorthand if you've read E/P/L.
At the beginning, I found it witty, wanting to be funny, mildly amusing and mildly interesting. Spiritual journeys and memoirs have never really been my thing, so I wasn't that intrigued. Still, I kept reading (mostly because I was so relieved to be out of the endless Game of Thrones book I'd just finished.)
It kept getting more and more real and more and more amusing until I found myself alternately laughing out loud and utterly swept up in this woman's personal struggles.
In the end, I loved it -- the honest search for meaning, the envy and the vitriolic gossip sessions with her yogamates, the weird pee-drinking and other yoga-related rituals, and the crazy boomerang binges on brownies and booze, and most of all the vulnerability she revealed.
Loved this one.
September 24, 2012
I loved this book, even though I wasn’t terribly interested in reading about yoga or Bali. But the author made this an irresistible, compelling, FUNNY, page-turning read about love, relationships, friendships (god, to have a roommate like hers!), the power we give to mentors and those we admire, the letdown of mentors and those we admire when we learn they are real and fallible people, how we view other cultures through our first-world lens, letting go, and the healing nature of a damn good milkshake. I could not wait to get back to it whenever I was pulled away. The author wasn’t snarky in the black-lipstick way I expected from the title, and I was glad of it.
April 12, 2012
Yoga Bitch - a Memoir
It's one of the best yoga memoirs I've read, and certainly the most entertaining. Unlike some books that show only the positives of yoga and praise it nonstop, it shows the dark side of yoga, but it does so in a way that reflects the author's insight into herself and the world.
The author's voice is funny, honest and reflective. When I bought the book, I didn't realize it was a memoir - I thought it was a novel. For me, knowing that it was a memoir made it more appealing.
She kept my attention and kept me up too late many nights as I tried to devour it. Then I realized that I should savor it instead of reading it so quickly. It's rare that a book makes me laugh out loud when I'm in public places, and this book did it. I think the last book that did that for me was "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.
Lately I've been reading all the yoga memoirs and light yoga fiction I can get my hands on. When they are told from a female perspective, they are all the more appealing because I can often understand their perspectives. I go into each one wanting to like it. However, some have been a trial for me to finish, such as "Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses" by Clair Dederer, which I do plan to restart and finish since so many people do like it.
Some have compared "Yoga Bitch" to "Eat, Pray, Love." Granted, there are some similarities: female memoirs, both go to a foreign country in search of something inside themselves, both have some relationship issues, both practice meditation in their travels, and both find love.
However, there are many more differences between the two than similarities, and these differences are drastic. One book is entertaining and one is not. One was written by an older, established writer and the other was written by a younger, unestablished writer. Yoga Bitch feels more honest and is far more interesting of the two.
"YB" is also a coming of age memoir since 25 is a turning point in most people's lives. Plus, the events took place shortly after 9/11, and that was a time that resonated with many of us.
Eat, Pray, Love was an ordeal for me to read, and I got tired of the "woe is me" navel gazing author. ELP was more of a "I got paid to travel and write about it for a year."
ELP's author, Elizabeth Gilbert, wrote her book with an advance contract already made, and the book read that way. Gilbert was older, in her 30s, and coming out of a divorce. Gilbert had money and could easily afford her one year of foreign travels. Gilbert was already an established author.
Yoga Bitch was written 10 years after Morrison went to Bali. She was in Bali for just two months. She went to Bali to study yoga and meditation. She was grappling with 9/11, her belief in God, dying family members and her impending life changes, which were and are major to a 25 year old. Her book reflects who she was at 25 and who she is at 35.
When "Yoga Bitch" the play came to my city, I passed on seeing it. The things I'd read about it and the title put me off. I thought it was going to be mean spirited. Now that I've read the book, I wish that I had seen her show.
It will be interesting to see what Morrison writes in the future.
It's one of the best yoga memoirs I've read, and certainly the most entertaining. Unlike some books that show only the positives of yoga and praise it nonstop, it shows the dark side of yoga, but it does so in a way that reflects the author's insight into herself and the world.
The author's voice is funny, honest and reflective. When I bought the book, I didn't realize it was a memoir - I thought it was a novel. For me, knowing that it was a memoir made it more appealing.
She kept my attention and kept me up too late many nights as I tried to devour it. Then I realized that I should savor it instead of reading it so quickly. It's rare that a book makes me laugh out loud when I'm in public places, and this book did it. I think the last book that did that for me was "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.
Lately I've been reading all the yoga memoirs and light yoga fiction I can get my hands on. When they are told from a female perspective, they are all the more appealing because I can often understand their perspectives. I go into each one wanting to like it. However, some have been a trial for me to finish, such as "Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses" by Clair Dederer, which I do plan to restart and finish since so many people do like it.
Some have compared "Yoga Bitch" to "Eat, Pray, Love." Granted, there are some similarities: female memoirs, both go to a foreign country in search of something inside themselves, both have some relationship issues, both practice meditation in their travels, and both find love.
However, there are many more differences between the two than similarities, and these differences are drastic. One book is entertaining and one is not. One was written by an older, established writer and the other was written by a younger, unestablished writer. Yoga Bitch feels more honest and is far more interesting of the two.
"YB" is also a coming of age memoir since 25 is a turning point in most people's lives. Plus, the events took place shortly after 9/11, and that was a time that resonated with many of us.
Eat, Pray, Love was an ordeal for me to read, and I got tired of the "woe is me" navel gazing author. ELP was more of a "I got paid to travel and write about it for a year."
ELP's author, Elizabeth Gilbert, wrote her book with an advance contract already made, and the book read that way. Gilbert was older, in her 30s, and coming out of a divorce. Gilbert had money and could easily afford her one year of foreign travels. Gilbert was already an established author.
Yoga Bitch was written 10 years after Morrison went to Bali. She was in Bali for just two months. She went to Bali to study yoga and meditation. She was grappling with 9/11, her belief in God, dying family members and her impending life changes, which were and are major to a 25 year old. Her book reflects who she was at 25 and who she is at 35.
When "Yoga Bitch" the play came to my city, I passed on seeing it. The things I'd read about it and the title put me off. I thought it was going to be mean spirited. Now that I've read the book, I wish that I had seen her show.
It will be interesting to see what Morrison writes in the future.
April 19, 2012
This book is an enjoyable read, although I don't think the title fully captures the flavour of this book. Probably it's meant to sound bad-ass. Regarding the term "yoga bitch" - this has to do with the more-enlightened-than-thou attitude that extreme yogis sometimes display, and the author doesn't come across as really having this problem. As for the after-the-hyphen bit... sugar is a much more significant vice within the book's narrative than cigarettes. Banana milkshakes never sounded so good.
The author alternates between a present-day retrospective account of how she got into yoga and a diary she kept during a 2-month workshop in Bali (although the diary reads more like diaries in novels than real-life diaries, so I suspect it's been cleaned up and edited quite a bit). The core of the story is how her relationship with a yoga teacher and mentor evolved over time, from idealizing her to demonizing her to, finally (long after the workshop ended) accepting her as another human being. There's also a "group psychology" element, as any group of people who live in close proximity and separated from the outside world are bound to go through some bonding experiences. For example, feeling social pressure to drink your own urine (no, I'm not kidding). Although there is a love story element, it is relatively minor and it never feels as if relationships define the author's identity.
The author alternates between a present-day retrospective account of how she got into yoga and a diary she kept during a 2-month workshop in Bali (although the diary reads more like diaries in novels than real-life diaries, so I suspect it's been cleaned up and edited quite a bit). The core of the story is how her relationship with a yoga teacher and mentor evolved over time, from idealizing her to demonizing her to, finally (long after the workshop ended) accepting her as another human being. There's also a "group psychology" element, as any group of people who live in close proximity and separated from the outside world are bound to go through some bonding experiences. For example, feeling social pressure to drink your own urine (no, I'm not kidding). Although there is a love story element, it is relatively minor and it never feels as if relationships define the author's identity.
January 8, 2018
Yoga Bitch reads like a coming-of-age story as Suzanne learns to to come to terms with herself and those around her at a yoga teacher training retreat in Bali. Her writing, a combination of a diary kept during the retreat itself and chapter openers that look back at the past through eyes cleared with experience, is funny, irreverent, and sincerely honest.
Thinking back to my own mid-twenties and remembering the search for both myself and something spiritual, I was happy to travel with Suzanne as she uncovers for herself what is truly important. The epilogue filled me with much happiness for the way it wrapped things up in Suzanne’s life and those of her yoga retreat friends.
Most of all, I found Yoga Bitch to be inspiring, for yoga and for life. I’ve practiced yoga for nearly two years now, but without much of the spiritual aspect. Suzanne’s story gave me more respect for that side of yoga, even if I am more a skeptic than she was. I’ve found myself returning to the mat more frequently during and after my reading of Yoga Bitch. I also found it to be eminently readable, unlike Eat, Pray Love, which I couldn’t stand.
I haven’t read many other spiritual or yoga memoirs, but I found myself ordering a whole spate of them, along with other yoga books, from the library after finishing Yoga Bitch. I think that alone is a testament to how much I enjoyed this book.
Thinking back to my own mid-twenties and remembering the search for both myself and something spiritual, I was happy to travel with Suzanne as she uncovers for herself what is truly important. The epilogue filled me with much happiness for the way it wrapped things up in Suzanne’s life and those of her yoga retreat friends.
Most of all, I found Yoga Bitch to be inspiring, for yoga and for life. I’ve practiced yoga for nearly two years now, but without much of the spiritual aspect. Suzanne’s story gave me more respect for that side of yoga, even if I am more a skeptic than she was. I’ve found myself returning to the mat more frequently during and after my reading of Yoga Bitch. I also found it to be eminently readable, unlike Eat, Pray Love, which I couldn’t stand.
I haven’t read many other spiritual or yoga memoirs, but I found myself ordering a whole spate of them, along with other yoga books, from the library after finishing Yoga Bitch. I think that alone is a testament to how much I enjoyed this book.
May 26, 2017
I got to the halfway point with this book and made the decision not to finish it. If you hated Eat, Pray, Love as much as I did, you will not like this book either. I'm 39, and reading about a privileged 24 year old on a yoga retreat was boring. The story was uninteresting and self-indulgent. Yes, I realize it's a memoir which by definition is somewhat self-indulgent. However, if the person writing the story actually has something to say, it doesn't come off that way. I just finished The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner which is also a memoir about her childhood growing up in a polygamist family. Interesting, sad, poignant and moving, it was someone's story that had something to say. Who wants to read about a privileged white girl whining about not knowing what to do with her life?? Waaahhh. Put on your adult pants and shut up.
September 27, 2014
I practically inhaled Suzanne Morrison's autobiographical memoir about that poignant time of life in-between between childhood and adulthood that is by turns exhilarating and frightening. Yoga is a part of this story, but by no means the whole story or even truly the primary focus. It's more about coming into one's own and that journey told with a sense of self-awareness and sense of humor. Parts of this had me so choked up that I was relieved I wasn't in a public place, where I'm sure my convulsions of laughter would have concerned and/or frightened any on-lookers.
January 2, 2019
This was a light and entertaining read. A little self indulgent at times (but that's probably hard to avoid in a memoir) but it did address some deeper issues as well. The charm of the book for me was the unsparing honesty of the author, and that she managed to capture and convey some of the reasons why yoga holds such an appeal for me.
March 26, 2020
Yoga Bitch was well worth the time commitment and included several points I could relate to as someone who has practiced yoga. I don’t think one needs to have ever gone to a yoga class to relate to Suzanne’s journey. It was an entertaining, thought provoking book.
It also included several hilarious moments that resulted in laughing fits.
It also included several hilarious moments that resulted in laughing fits.
July 1, 2021
This book has copped a bit of slack. It's not a training book on yoga, it's a memoir and a pretty hilarious, brutally honest account from a 20 something girl navigating her twenties when she is about to embark on big changes in her life. I'd love to see her one-woman show.
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March 27, 2016The Bewitching Bibliophile
https://thebewitchingbibliophile.word...
Namaste, Bitch
I read Suzanne Morrison’s entertaining enlightenment escapade last summer. It was an odd choice of a “beach book”, and certainly caused a few eyebrows to furrow. I am a former yoga teacher, and after living as part of that lifestyle for so long, I needed an outsiders view.
Yogis take themselves way too seriously most of the time. It’s all about the breath and finding inner peace. I was a very angry yogi, which is probably why I have not progressed as many others have. I’m guessing all my chakras are not only blocked, but padlocked. The point of view in Yoga Bitch is very closely related to my own. I’m a cynical, sarcastic coffee addict who has been adrift trying to find an anchor in a sea of rage.
I found yoga as a 17 year old. It was purely out of rebellion. Long before there were fancy yoga studios and celebrity instructors, there were sweaty, smelly junior high gyms and community school classes. I signed up for yoga because it was reinforcement I was different from everyone else. Look at me, I’m drinking wheatgrass juice and standing on my head. I’m hip and you’re not.
While I’ve never had the luxury of spending two months in Bali on retreat, I have dealt with the disillusionment she experienced. I also have dealt with unresolved spiritual issues that seem to bubble up at the most inopportune times. Over the course of the last few years, the curtain has been pulled back on my belief system and I confronted the wizard. When there is someone you look to as a guru, you tend to idealize them. After all, if they’re on a pedestal, it’s more fun to knock them down and watch them fall. Suzanne Morrison was able to experience this when she realized the humanity-with all its magnificent flaws-of her yoga instructors.
I don’t know how I would react to the time in Bali she was afforded. It was a very different perspective from Eat Pray Love, and I was grateful for that. After investing in an experience of a lifetime, I probably would have been more in tune with the whole kumbaya, namaste go wellness mindset. Her description of her fellow retreatist drinking her own pee is priceless. There are all kinds of freaks and weirdos yoga attracts, like me.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even if it was not exactly what I had anticipated it to be. I liked Morrison’s cynicism which is in direct opposition to the earnestness of her fellow yogis. It might not be the best beach book selection, but it might be a highly entertaining one.
https://thebewitchingbibliophile.word...
Namaste, Bitch
I read Suzanne Morrison’s entertaining enlightenment escapade last summer. It was an odd choice of a “beach book”, and certainly caused a few eyebrows to furrow. I am a former yoga teacher, and after living as part of that lifestyle for so long, I needed an outsiders view.
Yogis take themselves way too seriously most of the time. It’s all about the breath and finding inner peace. I was a very angry yogi, which is probably why I have not progressed as many others have. I’m guessing all my chakras are not only blocked, but padlocked. The point of view in Yoga Bitch is very closely related to my own. I’m a cynical, sarcastic coffee addict who has been adrift trying to find an anchor in a sea of rage.
I found yoga as a 17 year old. It was purely out of rebellion. Long before there were fancy yoga studios and celebrity instructors, there were sweaty, smelly junior high gyms and community school classes. I signed up for yoga because it was reinforcement I was different from everyone else. Look at me, I’m drinking wheatgrass juice and standing on my head. I’m hip and you’re not.
While I’ve never had the luxury of spending two months in Bali on retreat, I have dealt with the disillusionment she experienced. I also have dealt with unresolved spiritual issues that seem to bubble up at the most inopportune times. Over the course of the last few years, the curtain has been pulled back on my belief system and I confronted the wizard. When there is someone you look to as a guru, you tend to idealize them. After all, if they’re on a pedestal, it’s more fun to knock them down and watch them fall. Suzanne Morrison was able to experience this when she realized the humanity-with all its magnificent flaws-of her yoga instructors.
I don’t know how I would react to the time in Bali she was afforded. It was a very different perspective from Eat Pray Love, and I was grateful for that. After investing in an experience of a lifetime, I probably would have been more in tune with the whole kumbaya, namaste go wellness mindset. Her description of her fellow retreatist drinking her own pee is priceless. There are all kinds of freaks and weirdos yoga attracts, like me.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even if it was not exactly what I had anticipated it to be. I liked Morrison’s cynicism which is in direct opposition to the earnestness of her fellow yogis. It might not be the best beach book selection, but it might be a highly entertaining one.
November 23, 2011
When it comes to the book genre of yoga-centric spiritual awakenings, I am wary of what I like to call the “Eat, Pray, Love Effect.” Basically, after Eat, Pray, Love went on to make a self-absorbed, ridiculous woman a very rich, self-absorbed woman, other writers began realizing they could also make a fortune off self-aware, quip-filled travelogues and publishers were all too eager to comply. Voila—we have shelves and shelves at local bookstores full of Eat, Pray, Love wannabes hoping that theirs will be the next big Julia Roberts movie too.
On the surface, Yoga Bitch seems like an Eat, Pray, Love Lite and it is similar in a lot of ways: the protagonist is having an existential crisis, she is trying to figure out her interpersonal relationships, she’s doing yoga and meditation, she’s in Bali, etc. This is sounding very familiar, right? Here’s the difference: Suzanne Morrison can write. Not only that, but she is flawed in a believable way—not a self-deprecating, self-pitying way. The book is humorous and fun, too. I didn’t feel beaten over the head by meditations and introspection in the same way I have with other books like this. She seems like someone you’d want to be friends with and that likability goes a long way in this memoir.
On the surface, Yoga Bitch seems like an Eat, Pray, Love Lite and it is similar in a lot of ways: the protagonist is having an existential crisis, she is trying to figure out her interpersonal relationships, she’s doing yoga and meditation, she’s in Bali, etc. This is sounding very familiar, right? Here’s the difference: Suzanne Morrison can write. Not only that, but she is flawed in a believable way—not a self-deprecating, self-pitying way. The book is humorous and fun, too. I didn’t feel beaten over the head by meditations and introspection in the same way I have with other books like this. She seems like someone you’d want to be friends with and that likability goes a long way in this memoir.
November 4, 2012
I was looking for a book that would make me laugh so when my yoga daughter (she's the real deal; owns a Bikram studio where one practices in the heat) offered it up I grabbed it. Clever title; clever format - part narrative, part journal - although I really doubt she wrote such copious journal entries while in a two month intensive training class. And it made me laugh....until it didn't. Because as should be expected the journey to yoga instructor and following a path of clean living isn't easy. Nor is it easy to leave your close knit family behind not to mention the boyfriend who is moving to New York while you're studying yoga in Bali. And internet is sketchy so fears get magnified which is to say that there's lots of foreshadowing in Morrison's tale. And yes, I was reminded of Eat,Pray,Love because, in fact, she does all those things too.
I don't practice yoga much but I sort of live a parralel life to a yoga student by virtue of my daughter so I think I got the jargon and understood the difficulty of being a student. I also got a little tired of her self deprecating and then pity me attitude. I think her editor could have minimized some of this, but still the book is an interesting character study.
I don't practice yoga much but I sort of live a parralel life to a yoga student by virtue of my daughter so I think I got the jargon and understood the difficulty of being a student. I also got a little tired of her self deprecating and then pity me attitude. I think her editor could have minimized some of this, but still the book is an interesting character study.
October 29, 2011
This is a memoir of a woman who looks back on her days at a yoga retreat in Bali..does it remind of another book? Perhaps Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love"? Well, this is about as similar as the two books are. Suzanne Morrison writes in a very real, funny style that had me laughing out loud more than once while reading it. Morrison chronicles how she was in the process of moving across the country with her long-time boyfriend and right before the big move she departs to Indonesia to follow her yoga instructor--whom she basically idolizes--and tries to reach enlightenment. Things kind of blow up at times for Morrison, but along the way she makes some interesting friends, has a spiritual breakthrough, and finds out what she's been fearing all along. I'll admit, the one thing that was fairly continuous and annoying as all hell was her A) hero-worship of Indra, her instructor from Seattle, and B) her holier-than-thou attitude after she has what is called a "kundalini rising" (basically the pinnacle of meditation). Other than that, I really enjoyed the book and I liked the ending, though between you and me, I kind of saw it coming ;)
September 27, 2011
This book is not going to change your life, but throughout the narrative of the author's own experience it offers the reader a wealth of questions to ponder, and that in itself can be a very personally enriching exercise. That being said, I laughed throughout- frequently but not always with self-recognition.
Yoga Bitch is a largely fun, quick read that falls somewhere between "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Poser" in the curiously expanding genre of the yoga-memoir. I appreciated the author's honesty and openness about her internal struggles at various personal crossroads, her changing relationship to her teachers over time, the way she adapts to a different worldview without entirely losing her perspective, and especially her sarcastic humor and ongoing irreverence which carries throughout most of the book, which makes the few things she writes *without* ironic undertones stand out.
Yoga Bitch is a largely fun, quick read that falls somewhere between "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Poser" in the curiously expanding genre of the yoga-memoir. I appreciated the author's honesty and openness about her internal struggles at various personal crossroads, her changing relationship to her teachers over time, the way she adapts to a different worldview without entirely losing her perspective, and especially her sarcastic humor and ongoing irreverence which carries throughout most of the book, which makes the few things she writes *without* ironic undertones stand out.
February 29, 2012
I found the voice of this memoir to be inauthentic and less than compelling. I kept forgetting that it was meant to be a memoir, and thinking that it was just badly written chick lit.
The structure is odd. The author jumped back and forth in time periodically, and I could never understand why. It would have been better to stick with a chronological telling.
I picked up the book because I had really enjoyed Poser, and Eat Pray Love was also intriguing. Unfortunately, this one wasn't nearly as good.
The structure is odd. The author jumped back and forth in time periodically, and I could never understand why. It would have been better to stick with a chronological telling.
I picked up the book because I had really enjoyed Poser, and Eat Pray Love was also intriguing. Unfortunately, this one wasn't nearly as good.
May 28, 2012
Absolutely hilarious. I was more amused with her use of language than anything else really. I've never read a book of this genre, but I couldn't get my eyes off the title of the book, which is why I decided to pick it up.
The author of the book made me laugh, sometimes to tears with her remarks, but that was it for me (there were a few lines here and there that could be considered inspirational or quote worthy).
So if you're looking for an enjoyable read due to it's outrageous sense of humor, this is the book for you.
The author of the book made me laugh, sometimes to tears with her remarks, but that was it for me (there were a few lines here and there that could be considered inspirational or quote worthy).
So if you're looking for an enjoyable read due to it's outrageous sense of humor, this is the book for you.
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