Tag: recommended reading

August 1, 2019

SFF Book Recommendations and Aristotle’s Building Blocks of Writing

Writing is a holistic activity, but when it comes to honing our craft, it’s useful to break it down into parts. The June 30 episode of Writing Excuses, a podcast about the craft of writing that focuses primarily on fantasy and science fiction (SFF), introduced Aristotle’s elements of tragedy. These six aspects of writing apply to modern storytelling as easily as they did to ancient Greek plays. While Aristotle placed these elements in a specific order of importance, the authors on Writing Excuses argue that their relative importance changes based on what an author is trying to achieve. In my opinion, there’s no better way to make use of this theory than by looking at how it applies to books that do each element well. Below, I share how each element is used in an SFF book I recently read and loved. Take these examples as a starting point rather than a be-all and end-all. And, if you’re writing a work in progress, think about how Aristotle’s elements apply to it and which ones you want to emphasize.

Plot: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Aristotle ranked plot as the most important element of tragedy, and a tightly plotted yarn certainly keeps us reading. In Children of Blood and Bone, the divîner caste in the West African-inspired land of Orïsha have been brutally oppressed since the king eliminated their magic. Young Zélie finds a scroll that temporarily reignites these powers and gets caught up in a plan to bring magic back for good. This novel is tightly plotted and action packed. Each chapter ratchets up the tension, with gladiator battles, kidnapping, and an epic hero’s journey.

Character: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Three women take turns narrating this loose retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, and protagonist Miryem has the standout character arc. The daughter of a Jewish moneylender who is too softhearted (and frightened of persecution) to ask for his money back, Miryem resolves to turn around her struggling family’s fortunes and takes over her father’s job. She teaches herself to be relentless and drive a hard bargain. Her skills attract the attention of the mystical Staryk king, who wants to make use of her ability to “turn silver to gold.” Miryem’s evolution from daughter of a struggling family to skilled and hardened moneylender to strong-willed leader is a delight to witness.

Idea: The Black Tides of Heaven / The Red Threads of Fortune by J. Y. Yang

The Tensorate universe is founded on ideas. It has a carefully crafted magic system that involves entering the “slack” and “tensing” different elements to achieve effects. It’s a world where children choose their own gender in their own time and are considered genderless until then. Yang’s two novellas follow the twin children of this world’s dictatorial leader as they choose divergent paths, Akeha (Black Tides) becoming male and leading a rebel faction, Mokoya (Red Threads) becoming female and hunting monsters in the wake of personal tragedy. This intricacies of the magic and gender systems are fascinating and thoroughly explored. What happens when someone falls through the gaps, or thinks they know the rules but might be missing something? Yang has thought of that, too.

Dialogue: The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

One of the joys of an odd-couple cop story is the interplay between the pair. This novella’s two space sleuths are Long Chau, a consulting detective with a drug addiction and a hidden past, and The Shadow’s Child, a sentient spaceship traumatized from past military service who now makes a living (barely) by brewing and selling tea blends that keep customers’ minds clear in deep space. Long Chau approaches The Shadow’s Child for two things: tea and transport into the deep spaces that still trigger her trauma in order to find a corpse to study. The mysterious circumstances of said corpse’s death lead the pair to investigate. De Bodard’s dialogue is understated, with formal tones conveying the characters’ wariness around each other. Gaps in conversation show where they leave things unsaid and where Long Chau misses social nuances. At times, the characters are edgy and snarky:

“I’m writing a treatise on decomposition. How the human body changes in deep space is a shamefully undervalued area of study.”

“I can see why you’d be a success at local poetry clubs,” The Shadow’s Child said, wryly.

There’s a lot to appreciate in this story, and the dialogue is one element that works to show evolution in the characters’ fragile trust.

Music: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Astrid has spent her whole life on the Matilda, a spaceship that has carried humanity’s survivors for generations towards a promised land. It’s a brutal milieu, divided by nation-like decks, where the lower deckers (intersex people of color) are subjugated and forced to work on the revolving plantation deck. Astrid discovers that the journals of her late mother, an engineer, hold a secret code and that the Matilda’s bouts of power loss and illness may be more significant than anyone realized. Astrid is a nuanced and brilliant protagonist on the autism spectrum whose formal diction sets her apart from fellow lower-deckers, and the inhabitants of each deck in turn are distinguished by their language. Solomon imbues each shipboard culture with its own turns of phrase, use of pronouns, expressions, and cadences. The music that gives shape to this novel’s worldbuilding is exquisite.

Spectacle: Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Spectacle means putting on a good show. Kuhn’s fantastically fun urban fantasy, the first in a trilogy (with a follow-up novella and more to come soon), is full of flash and dazzle. Evie is the put-upon personal assistant to superheroine Aveda, her longtime best friend. But when Aveda is injured in a demon fight, Evie is called on to impersonate her, and the fire power she’s worked so hard to hide may be the very thing that saves the day. In SFF, spectacle can happen through worldbuilding and description as well as through action scenes. The heroes in Heroine Complex fight fanged cupcakes, and one of the pivotal battles takes place during a karaoke contest. Bring on the popcorn!

July 2, 2019

Book Review: Romancing the Page

I just finished a novella collection that combines keen publishing industry insights with charming f/f romance. Presenting Romancing the Page!

Written by fantasy author Laura Lam (Pantomime, False Hearts) writing and self-publishing under the open pen name Laura Ambrose, the three novellas in this series spin love stories between writers and publishing employees in the world of science fiction and fantasy. One reviewer likened them to “f/f candy,” and the comparison is apt. I found the romances compellingly paced, and raced my way through the characters’ conflicts and nuanced inner worlds to the payoff of each happy ending. I also enjoyed the novellas’ settings in London and Edinburgh, the UK cities I’ve been living in these past couple years.

In the first novella, A Hidden Hope, two American writers – former critique partners and lovers – meet at London a conference three years after their falling out. Neither had been published when they knew each other. Now Natalie has a precarious midlist career penning the fantasy novels she loves, and El, formerly convinced of the superiority of her “literary fiction,” has a big-budget fantasy debut coming out under a male pseudonym. Due to their previous involvement, there’s a lot of chemistry between the duo from the get-go, and hurt simmers beneath their resentment. The characters’ differing reactions to each other convey their temperaments: Natalie lashes out while El tries to make up. Once the two inevitably get together, expect quirky dates and plenty of heat. The conference setting allows for sharp industry insights as well. The uncertain fate awaiting authors of big debuts, Natalie’s need to support herself through a grueling secondary freelance career, the panel on sex with its skewering of sexism, the question of to what extent El using a male pen name has impacted her success… it’s all keenly observed, an insider’s point of view. The ending is an optimistic take – a realistic best-case-scenario if you will – not just for the central relationship but for the two writers’ careers, with neither skyrocketing but both finding their perfect balance.

The second novella, A Perfect Balance (see what I did there?), focuses on a likeable side character from the first: Emma, a friend of Natalie and El who has written urban fantasy about a rock band of zombie women and now work as an SFF editor. I really want to read Emma’s books! In fact, the novellas, and this one in particular, are packed with imaginary books that sound like fantastic additions to bookshelves, and I wish that Laura would write them. But on to the book at hand. Emma has been hooking up with a woman she met through an app, with neither using their real name or looking to pursue a relationship. Their dynamic is low-key kinky: Emma likes being told what to do, and the other woman likes giving orders. That is, until Emma comes back from a vacation to find that her company’s new marketing employee, Sage, is none other than her anonymous lover! Now Emma is the one giving orders as they work together on the marketing campaign for the biggest debut of the year. Both of them have reasons, rooted in their pasts, to fear committing to a relationship, but as they get to know each other, down to exchanging favorite childhood books, it gets increasingly challenging to avoid one. In her point of view chapters, Sage’s difficult relationship with her wealthy and demanding father is a big focus. She’s trying to break away and find herself, and by the end of the story, she does. Emma’s reasons for avoiding commitment seemed thinner to me – not necessarily invalid, but underdeveloped in comparison. Both characters’ passion for their work and competence at doing it were joys to read. In all the novellas, the satisfaction of doing good work is a deep part of the happy endings, and that’s something I appreciate. I also like how the author mixes things up with each character dynamic. While the other two pairings in Romancing the Page read as butch/femme-ish, Emma and Sage read as a femme/femme couple and Emma is bi or pan. The focus on power dynamics is lovingly rendered.

Speaking of power dynamics, An Unheard Song is rife with them (though not in a kinky context). Annalie, the author of the hit fantasy debut from the last novella, has been agoraphobic since her second book tanked. Her anxiety is compounded because this is her second career failure – she was previously a musician. She’s working on a third book, but isn’t able to go to the library to do the necessary research, so she hires an under-the-table assistant. Cam was a music scholar who lost out on dissertation funding because a woman on the committee propositioned her and then turned down her application after she said no. As Cam and Annalie work together and their attraction grows, they discover that the same woman is Annalie’s ex, responsible for halting her music career, and they decide to get revenge. In a romance context, the employee – employer dynamic feels borderline uncomfortable at times, though the characters tread sensitively around this dynamic. As people, though, Annalie and Cam are a powerfully complementary pair. This is the novella where the conflict felt most real, as the characters are dealing with much deeper issues than poor communication. Cam is afraid of telling her mother about her sexuality, of speaking out against harassers, and of fully expressing herself. Annalie is working on her anxiety through therapy and, at the onset of the story, is too afraid to leave her Edinburgh flat. The characters push each other to grow, speak up, find courage, and reclaim their power. While each takes the necessary action for her own growth, neither does so alone.

If you’re looking for some light, insightful summer reading, give Romancing the Page a read! I’ve linked to each novella separately in their reviews, too, in case one particularly appeals to you.

What are you reading this summer?

June 3, 2019

Lessons on Writing Relationships… from Romance Novels

Feedback on the first draft of a fiction manuscript I’ve been working on for a while, while positive in other aspects, suggested that the characters’ relationships lacked a certain spark. So, while working on the second draft, I turned to a genre that models relationship writing: romance.

Romance writing is a realm where constraint fuels creativity. A relationship focus and a happy ending are key to meeting the genre’s expectations. Readers know that the main characters are going to get together in the end; the fun (and literary skill) is in finding out how they get there. As well as being enjoyable to read, romance offers wonderful insights into building characters and crafting the dynamics between them. There’s nothing like a romance novel – focused on chemistry, rapport, and relationship development above all else – to illustrate how to write effective relationships in fiction!

Here are a few of the romance titles I’ve enjoyed recently, and the insights I’ve gleaned from them.

The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang: For Hoang, writing romance intersected with discovering that she was on the autism spectrum and creating characters who share neuro-similarities. In this delightful novel, the mother of Khai, an accountant on the spectrum who wants nothing to do with relationships, returns to Vietnam to find him an ideal bride. Esme, a whip-smart janitor with a young daughter (inspired in part by Hoang’s immigrant mom), is eager to seek new opportunities in America. But to secure a better life for herself and her family, she must, in one summer, win the heart of a man who believes himself unable to love. The relationship between Khai and Esme evolves with sensitivity to their very different needs and experiences. While there’s mutual attraction, it comes with a lot of misunderstandings, often related to culture or neurology, that the characters must overcome. Hoang excels at creating interpersonal conflict with solid reasons behind it, both internal and interpersonal. Read this novel for a great example of how two very different characters, with realistically divergent experiences, can convincingly come together.

The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles), by Amy Spalding: In this queer YA romance, Abby begins a summer internship at her favourite clothing store only to discover that a co-intern, Jordi, is also vying for the single job available once the summer ends. But the two girls hit it off so well that sparks fly between them, and private, plus-sized Abby, who’d cast herself in the archetypal romantic-comedy “friend” role, must come to grips with photographer Jordi’s view of her as a leading lady. Abby’s thoughtful perspective definitely leads here, with Jordi being more of a secondary character. I found her a great example of crafting a non-point-of-view romantic interest who is appealing and fleshed out – scenes with her photography and family are charming, though not central. Another great secondary character is the funny jock Jax, best friend of Abby’s best friend’s boyfriend. A secondary storyline follows the “friend chemistry” that evolves between him and Abby as the unlikely pair sample L.A.’s burgers for a rating app.

Outback Billionaire, by Nikki Steele: The cover cracked me up, but the writing kept me reading until I finished it in one sitting. This was a fun read with a tight perspective on the two romantic leads, alternating POVs between Marlo, an American aspiring actress brought to Australia by her good-for-nothing manager fiance (they break up quickly thereafter), and Jack, a wealthy cattle station owner who offers her a job on his land. In a genre often focused on the heroine, I would have liked to know Marlo better, but found Jack’s concerns (health problems, hot buttons, vulnerabilities) to be particularly well explored. His interests are appealing and understated. The fantasy of wealth is conveyed through the understated sensuality of French press coffee, good wine, and a love of open spaces. The Australian Outback is described with precision and gorgeous language – you get a romance and armchair travel in one!

Hate to Want You and Wrong to Need You, by Alisha Rai: In this family-drama romance series, two families that once co-owned a grocery chain have a bitter falling out after a parent in each family dies in a car crash. Hate to Want You is the story of Nick and Livvy, children of the respective families, a couple forced to break up after the families split. Since then, they’ve hooked up once a year, and when Livvy comes back to town, both of their suppressed feelings for each other threaten to reignite old wounds. Wrong to Need You develops a romance between Sadia, single mom and widow of Livvy’s brother, and the surviving brother, Jackson, a once-close friend who cut Sadia off after being accused of burning the flagship grocery store. I have yet to read the third book, Hurts to Love You, which ties up loose ends in this angsty saga of family secrets. Rai’s series excels at developing multiple character relationships at once. Family, friendships, and romantic ties are all complicated and all matter deeply to both plot and characters. Every heated moment has emotional heft. Mental health issues are integral to the plot, and the characters are diverse and deep. If you’re interested in writing romantic relationships, an ensemble cast, or both, the Forbidden Hearts series is well worth your time.

If you’re looking to bring more romance in your reading life (either for fun, for writerly insights, or both), Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is an awesome resource for discussions and recommendations of what’s good, what’s not so good, and what’s out there. And of course, there are lots of romance deals available on Amazon to get you started!

I’m delighted to see this genre getting growing critical respect (the New York Times Book Review now has a romance critic!) and publishing a wider variety of voices. In an often harsh world, there’s something both comforting and radical in reading about all kinds of people finding happiness.

May 1, 2017

Our Favorite Enneagram Resources

Co-written with Kacie Berghoef

In our years of Enneagram teaching and learning, we’ve had the benefit of many wonderful resources. With the Enneagram growing in popularity, there are books, videos, courses, apps, and a plethora of other options for learning about its many applications. Writing our book The Modern Enneagram gave us an opportunity to contribute to this conversation. We wanted to create an entry point for newcomers to this complex system. For readers who want to continue their learning, we included a list of resources for going deeper, focusing on different applications of the Enneagram such as careers or relationships. This month, we’d like to spotlight a few of our favorite resources that we recommend in The Modern Enneagram.

For Beginners: The Enneagram Made Easy: Discover the 9 Types of People by Elizabeth Wagele and Renee Baron

If you’re new to the Enneagram and looking for an engaging starting point, or if you’re seeking a fun way to introduce the system to friends, family, or clients, this book is a perfect pick. It introduces the nine types in simple, accessible language. Liz’s cartoons, sprinkled liberally throughout the text, give funny and relatable examples of how the types behave and see things. They flesh out the Enneagram theory in ways beyond what words can convey alone, and make for great conversation points. The book’s breezy nature makes it easy to pick up and put down for busy readers.

Business and Career: Awareness to Action: The Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence, and Change by Robert Tallon and Mario Sikora

This is an excellent practical guide for using the Enneagram in the workplace. It presents the nine types as strategies that can be used skillfully or unskillfully, and introduces a simple framework for building on your strengths and growing your performance. Many mainstream Enneagram resources have a spiritual slant or use language that doesn’t work in corporate environments. This book speaks to the workplace in ways that are both thorough and usable, without skimping on the depth and growth that working with the Enneagram can provide.

Personal Growth: Personality Types by Don Riso and Russ Hudson

An Enneagram classic, Riso and Hudson’s book delves deeply into the types’ dynamics and journeys of growth. It remains the most comprehensive resource for understanding the Levels of Development: the progression of personality through mental health, from our darkest struggles to our highest potential. Check out this book if you’re looking for in-depth insight and a thorough psychological take on the Enneagram types, as well as an inspiring view of what your best self can look like.

Relationships: Sex, Love, and Your Personality: The 9 Faces of Intimacy by Mona Coates and Judith Searle

This relationship book by a seasoned sex therapist goes beyond type and explores the three instincts, or subtypes, within each Enneagram number. Coates’ 35 years of working in the field allow her to offer rich and varied case studies for each type-instinct combo, illuminating real-life relationship challenges and ways of working with your type toward relationship success. This book also includes a scale for assessing relationship compatibility. Personal and thorough, it’s both an intriguing read and an excellent tool for understanding yourself and your partner.

Spiritual Growth: The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri

This book is geared toward the advanced Enneagram student and spiritual seeker. Maitri expands on basic familiarity with the system by presenting some of the Enneagram’s spiritual context. She views the types as stemming from loss of contact with our essential nature, resulting in the development of a particular ego structure. The book goes into detail in explaining how these structures operate and how we can get more deeply in touch again with our essential selves. It also presents a unique take on each type’s repressed inner child.

One wonderful thing about the Enneagram today is the wealth of resources available. Our recommendations above are just the tip of the iceberg. See our book, The Modern Enneagram, for a more thorough list of recommended resources, or feel free to recommend your own in the comments!

May 2, 2016

Understanding the Levels of Development

levels of development Co-written with Kacie Berghoef

We all have times when we’re at our best – attentive, resilient, and able to handle whatever comes our way. We also have times when every little thing bugs us, and we find ourselves caught up in conflict at the drop of a hat.

Most Enneagram teachers, including us, believe that we each have a personality type that is probably set from an early age. Our Enneagram type gives us a core motivation and a way we desire to exist in the world. Sometimes, those of us who share an Enneagram type will also share similar ways of behaving in our environments. However, we also see a great deal of variation in how people with the same type behave, and in how we ourselves behave at different points in our life.

One of our Enneagram teachers, Don Riso (joined later by Russ Hudson), described much of this variation through the Levels of Development. Riso identified that each of the Enneagram types has nine different Levels of Health at which they can exist. All of us have days where we’re “on our game,” with an awareness and ability to respond to circumstances in a way that’s empowering. On the other hand, sometimes we have days that are more difficult, and say or do things we later regret. These Levels represent a range of attitudes and behaviors that exist in all of us, over the course of years or even in the same day! Understanding the Levels of Development helps us stay aware of how we’re doing, and catch ourselves when we dip lower than we’d like to.

Below is a brief summary of how The Enneagram Institute summarizes Healthy, Average, and Unhealthy Levels:

The Healthy Levels (Levels One, Two, and Three) – At the Healthy Levels of Development, we’re able to approach situations with awareness and compassion for ourselves and others. We have the ability to make decisions that are effective and beneficial. We embody our Enneagram type’s most positive qualities. When operating healthfully, we find ourselves acting and behaving in ways that contribute positively to our own lives and our communities around us. Most of us hope to attain the strong awareness and psychological health of Levels One-Three, and through our personal growth work and practices we can establish a baseline of functioning at these Levels.

The Average Levels (Levels Four, Five, and Six) – Average Levels of Development tend to encompass much of our everyday functioning. At these Levels, we’re often feeling good and managing our lives, but we don’t have the same degree of awareness as we do in the Healthy Levels. Riso and Hudson describe us as starting to operate on autopilot at these Levels, and our decisions are based on what we feel like we need to get our type’s motivations met. When we face challenges at Average Levels, we make decisions less mindfully, often saying and doing things to try to gain control over situations. These decisions may not be the best in the long term, and can cause strain on our relationships. The good news is, at Average Levels we still maintain some level of self-awareness, and respond to personal growth practices that help us regain healthy psychological functioning.

The Unhealthy Levels (Levels Seven, Eight, and Nine) – When we function at Unhealthy Levels, we lack self-awareness and make decisions completely on autopilot. At this point, our decisions have the potential to be destructive to ourselves and others. The good news is, most of us don’t operate here long-term. When someone stays in the Unhealthy Levels, it’s usually a reaction to severe crisis or trauma. At these Levels, we benefit from receiving support from a therapist or other trained professional.

It’s possible for all of us to learn to operate in a place that is psychologically healthy and aware! Through a combination of developing regular practices that challenge and inspire us, and finding a team of supporters in our goals, we can develop the attentiveness, functionality, and flexibility that characterize a shift up the Levels.

To learn more about how the Levels of Development work in all nine types, we recommend reading Personality Types, by Don Riso with Russ Hudson, or attending our Journey of Growth (Levels) Enneagram Institute Authorized Workshop.

November 17, 2015

Book Review: The Awakened Company

Co-written with Kacie Berghoef

Our colleague Catherine Bell (no relation to Melanie Bell) recently released a book that we’re excited about. Written in collaboration with Enneagram expert Russ Hudson and Christopher Papadopoulos, The Awakened Company is a passionate and pragmatic call for a new way of doing business. While traditional business models focus primarily on profit and efficiency, Bell calls for a big-picture approach that also takes sustainability, community, and mindfulness into account.

The Awakened Company comes at a time, post-financial crash, when “the historic notions of doing business are rapidly unraveling on nearly all levels” (p. 4). Bell describes the problems of meaningless work, a growth-based (and thus ultimately unsustainable) financial model, and the “business is business” philosophy, which “assumes that the purpose of business is to make money, and whatever it takes to do so is okay” (p. 1). She recalls the history of early businesses, rooted in family, community, and service, and calls for a way of doing business that returns to these roots and innovates beyond them. The result is the “awakened” company of the book’s title, which is attentive to global context.

Bell argues that the smallest business decisions have consequences, and that companies benefit from making sure that these decisions – from the sourcing of products to the creation of company culture – are made ethically and with deliberation. “Business is far from just ‘business’,” she concludes; “It’s deeply interwoven with the whole of life” (p. 57). In order to thrive in the modern world, corporations need to adopt a deep-rooted sense of civic responsibility and connectedness.

Much of the book discusses the importance of building greater awareness in the business sphere. Bell introduces the qualities of “presence,” a state of being grounded, attentive, and open, and their positive effects on the workplace. Cultivating presence in leaders and teams fosters adaptability, harmony, and work relationships that feel meaningful. The book argues that the functioning of any company is improved when a leader or small team cultivates a climate of mindful awareness that spreads throughout the organization. Bell also makes a convincing case for the importance of growing aspects of company culture that are often overlooked, such as reflection and aesthetics (and the Enneagram is in there, subtly).

The Awakened Company takes a macro approach, and covers a lot of ground. The book is peppered with brief case examples, allowing readers to better understand how the book’s organizational principles are implemented on the ground. Hopefully a future publication will cover such examples in more detail. The book often uses spiritual language, but The Awakened Company’s suggestions are well researched and eminently practical. This book is ideal for leaders seeking a thorough and well-thought-out guide to principles of sustainable company-building. Happily, the approaches laid out by The Awakened Company are increasingly common in today’s business landscape. With Bell’s book reaching a broader audience, their reach may continue to grow.

November 1, 2014

Bringing the Enneagram to Teens

Co-written with Kacie Berghoef

Having learned the Enneagram at a young age, bringing the Enneagram to more young people remains a topic close to our hearts. For teenagers, the Enneagram opens a door to improving relationships with parents and friends, and feeling seen for who you are–a person with thoughts, feelings, and needs independent from those around you. It gives a language to describe your viewpoint to the people who matter to you, and helps in making decisions about the direction you want your life to take.

When we were teenagers discovering the Enneagram, wonderful books existed about this system–Melanie has fond memories of holing up in the college library, browsing the “Enneagram corner”–but none of them focused on people our age. The vast majority of our peers were not familiar with the Enneagram, leaving us largely to teach it to them.

Elizabeth Wagele’s latest book, The Enneagram for Teens, has the potential to change this. Wagele previously wrote an Enneagram book aimed at children, but as far as we know, this is the first book exclusively oriented to a teenaged audience. In this fun and clearly-written read, Wagele writes in an engaging manner that teens are sure to enjoy. Wagele’s cartoons, both illustrative of the types and entertaining, grace most of the pages of her book. Wagele dedicates a chapter to each of the nine types, and a final chapter depicts each type’s leadership style. Wagele describes each type in a way that is easy to grasp, with examples most relatable to high school and college-aged readers.

Wagele excels at creating material that connects with the target audience. Each type chapter offers a quiz made of statements that come directly from teenagers–a refreshingly clear and direct approach. (You might be a Six if you “want to be safe and to be told the truth.”) Wagele also offers practical goals for self-development tailored to teens of each type.

The heart and soul of Wagele’s book comes from the primary source material. In each chapter, she interviews several people from each Enneagram type, both teens and young adults looking back on their experience. The subjects Wagele interviews provide a diverse cross-section of perspectives. Some, such as a type One rebel, do a welcome job of defying personality stereotypes, while others give a well-rounded sense of each Enneagram type’s strengths and challenges. Especially affecting is one Three exemplar’s memory of telling the principal her team had lost a tournament as she received her diploma–“That’s all I ever think about when I think about high school graduation.” It should be easy for readers to hear their own experiences mirrored in the young voices in the book.

We believe The Enneagram for Teens is a wonderful resource for teenagers and college students first learning about the Enneagram, as well as parents hoping to get into the shoes of their teens. Our own experiences of encountering the Enneagram young were pivotal: for example, Kacie finally understood her parents’ perspectives and why they were different from her own, and Melanie learned strategies to manage her emotions. Wagele’s book has great potential to more widely engage young people in learning the Enneagram. We hope this book will help young Enneagram enthusiasts connect with each other!