My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock

I don’t remember how I found out about this book. It was probably recommended to me by Amazon when I was looking up other books such as Eat, Pray, Love (which I’m currently in the middle of), The Happiness Project, or MWF Seeking BFF (both books which I loved and blogged about on the book club page.)

The gist of the story is Noelle loses her big time, high paying job in NYC and is at a loss for what to do with her life now. She gets inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt who was a famously strong woman (and first lady!), who lived fearlessly into her old age. She has so many amazing quotes throughout the book that start each chapter, and she lead a very courageous life.

Noelle is inspired by Eleanor and decides to dedicate an entire year to facing her fears. She does all sorts of fun and crazy things, like doing a trapeze class, going cage diving with sharks, sky diving, and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Some seriously awesome adventures! It is so much fun following along on her journey and seeing her conquer her fears left and right.

It’s a great lesson to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones and stare fear in the face and not let it win. I loved reading this book and am totally inspired to do things that I fear and have built up in my head.

We can’t all take a year off and face our fears but we can do things daily that make us uncomfortable, and prove that we really are stronger than we think.

And if you enjoy reading her book, here’s a fun update on her life from an article she wrote in April 2015 for Cosmopolitan.