[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary and Review
I was pleasantly surprised by this new book that introduces people to the Enneagram!
The author is the person behind the Instagram profile Enneagram and Coffee (which I love!). She opens the book with her personal experience, background and philosophy. (I appreciate her personal effort to de-stigmatize some of the historically used language of the Enneagram.) She focuses on the basic information of each type and adds subtypes (sexual, self-preservation, and social), wings, lines (she prefers the terms stress and “rest” instead of stress and security), and levels of health. I personally ascribe to the Suzanne Stabile school of thought on lines, which says while a 2, for example, goes to 8 in stress, they can choose/learn to go to the HIGH side of 8 and use those skills to help through stress rather than defaulting to the LOW side of 8. That is NOT how this author views the moves across lines in stress and security/rest. This difference in philosophy didn’t derail my reading or my enjoyment of the book.
The way this book stands out from the crowd – and this field has gotten crowded in recent years – is the author’s H.O.N.E.S.T. system for helping readers/clients pursue growth. The H stands for “Honor your strengths” and the O is for “Open your eyes to blind spots.” The author explains her system in general terms, but then she also applies it to each of the Enneagram types. This was the piece that surprised me.
I think it is easy right now, with the resurgence in interest in the Enneagram, for people to churn out books on the topic that cover the basics. And they all start to blend together into noise. This book didn’t feel like noise. Even though I have been working with the Enneagram for about 3.5 years, there were new pieces in this that I wanted to dig into and learn. THAT is why I will be adding this book to my Enneagram library and telling others about it. For an introductory book, the author added value to it that even folks with a firm grasp of the basics can enjoy. (I also loved that she didn’t include a test!)
I still like recommending The Road Back to You as a first step into the world of the Enneagram, but this would be another great resource for beginners to dive into! You can read about other Enneagram resources here.