Courage Doesn't Always Roar
This small sized hardcover book has only a few words on each page, written in a bold brush stroke ink on a darkly colored background. The book is meant to help you think about things, to meditate on a new topic, and to steel your resolve for what life is throwing at you.
I generally enjoy books like this, and like the artistic idea behind this one. However, one of the first comments I have to make on it is that the brush style is simply NOT that easy to read. Every time I look at the title, for example, the first three letters look like COW. The U tied to the R end up making a W shape. This of course is something you can figure out quickly - it's not COWRAGE (no angry bovines here). But that is just the start of the font problems. Throughout the book looping and brush stroke fonts are used so sometimes you're not quite sure what the word is supposed to be.
Again, I'm torn. I love some of the artwork. They have "I will try again tomorrow" across from a great image done apparently with paints and paper cut outs. The thick texture of the "paint" background gives a real sense of strength and stability. But with the hard to read font, the book just didn't flow for me.
Also, most books of this style have a thought per page. You can pop it open and gain some wisdom from wherever you start. However, in this book thoughts are dragged out across multiple pages, sometimes with one word per page. That seemed almost cheating to me. I would think they could have put an entire thought on a page, and given us more thoughts to read. I'm sure there is a lot more that could be said about the many faces of courage!
With so few thoughts in the book, it makes me more hesitant when one of those thoughts just doesn't sit well with me. The book says that everything is fixable and everything is replaceable (except time and breath). Well, you can certainly fix breath - my boyfriend is snoring up a storm next to me right now and that would be a good thing to get fixed for his health. And I would never want to replace him! I've invested 14 years in our relationship and expect to be with him for many more decades. I also feel that some things are NOT fixable and that is OK. You need to learn when to let things go. So I would disagree with all aspects of this statement.
In the end, though, I really think it was the font choice that bothered me the most. Every time I went back to read it, I simply had trouble with the font and letters. A lovely idea - we all need more courage! But I would have liked even a slightly easier to read font, better tuned examples (for many reasons) and more examples for breadth.
Rating: 3/5
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