Toward Happier Choices

Toward Happier ChoicesToward Happier Choices by Michael Oborn is an ambitious collection of feminist and humanist narratives hoping to derail millenniums of dogma supporting cultural divisiveness and the suppression of womens human rights. Oborns text is a thought provoking, page turner. [He] explores themes such as womens rights, the pollution of the oceans, and the myth told about coffee. Oborns narratives convey his search for meaning in his life after he strips himself

Toward Happier Choices by Michael Oborn is an ambitious collection of feminist and humanist narratives hoping to derail millenniums of dogma supporting cultural divisiveness and the suppression of womenÕs human rights. ObornÕs text is a thought-provoking, page-turnerÉ. [He] explores themes such as womenÕs rights, the pollution of the oceans, and the myth told about coffee.

ObornÕs narratives convey his search for meaning in his life after he strips himself of his religious moorings. Far from being didactic stories, the majority are short and amusing narratives that share the shift of his perspective from a religious, stereotypical, and impersonal lifestyle to one that was indulgent, passionate, and enervating.

His first chapter, ÒChristopher Plummer and the Mormon ApostleÓ is an engrossing narrative that muses upon his innate life calling as opposed to his imposed life calling. The authorÕs narrative drips with irony, as he equates the drama of a lead actor in Hamlet to that of the mesmerizing performance of the Mormon Apostle.

His next story is a heart-breaking tale of his search for employment after his divorce.

I particularly relished that ObornÕs book is a covert declaration of war on debilitating fundamentalist philosophies and misogynistic religious doctrines. His revelations of the nerve-racking struggle to survive and thrive amid a torrent of guilt and impotence in the arena of independent and critical thinking engendered from his Mormon backgroundÉ I felt that his expositions unveiling the philosophies he considered as possessing genuine wisdom and universal truths were logical, wholesome, and transformational.

One of the indelible lines etched in my psyche from ObornÕs refreshing text is the following, ÒThe ludicrous belief that one man will have many wives makes of her a commodity and of him a sadist.Ó ObornÕs memoir about Sin City is perhaps one of the most amusing, incredible and endearing stories, I have ever read. This book of narratives is ideally suited for adults as the author in expressing angst at lifeÕs improbable situations sometimes used profane language. This book is for readers who are open-minded and willing to engage in critical thinking.

Paulette Reefer Author and Vice Principle, Dept of Education, University of The West, California