Leap Year

How to Make Big Decisions, Be More Resilient and Change Your Life for Good

By: Helen Russell

Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis

From the best-selling author of The Year of Living Danishly: How to make big decisions, be more resilient, and change your life for good.

Having spent the last few years in Denmark uncovering the secrets of the happiest country in the world, Helen Russell knows it's time to move back to the UK. She thinks. Maybe. Or maybe that's a terrible idea. Like many of us, she suffers from chronic indecision and a fear of change. So she decides to give herself a year for an experiment: to overhaul every area of her life, learn how to embrace change and become a lean, mean decision-making machine.

From how to cope with changing work lives and evolving relationships to how we feel about our bodies, money and well-being, Helen investigates the benefits of new beginnings, the secrets of decisive people and what makes changes last - and uncovers the practical life lessons we can all use to thrive when change is afoot and inject some freshness and magic if it's not.

©2016 Helen Russell (P)2016 Hodder & Stoughton

Loved it!

I loved the messages in the book and the little cheeky jokes along the way. The narration was excellent!

Exactly what I needed

Life is always changing and for some reason it’s still difficult for everyone to navigate. I’m in a whirlwind of big changes, and Helen helped me to see them in new perspectives. I want to go back through this and take notes, since I first listened during my commute. She shares information and advice without being boring, or worse, smug. She just shares. It’s like having coffee with a very well-read friend.

Loved this book!

Really good book with great concrete suggestions on how to navigate this crazy world we live in. This is all done with great humor and self deprecation. As with her first book, the narration was outstanding. I really enjoyed this book!

Sad that it ended!

I hope she rights another! Can't beat inspiration mixed with terrific British humor! More please!

Great listen

Another witty, insightful book by Helen Russell. The narrator is excellent too. I enjoyed this book quite a bit.

Loved this book!

Helen Russell is my new favorites author! Read Living Danishly before I picked up this one. Loved it just as much as the last one and can't wait for her next book!

My Kind of Person - No Truck with Trump

Where does Leap Year rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Any additional comments?

Actually I was undecided about buying this audiobook. My friend had just finished reading the hardback and recommended it . So to help me make up my mind I looked at the posted reviews and saw the author was anti Trump and that made my mind up! I immediately purchased and listened to the audiobook and I'm pleased I did. It is part personal story - part anecdotes part advice - I found it an easy listen and in the end it me look at life in a different way - I thoroughly enjoyed it and have just purchased the author's previous book which I look forward to reading next week.

An entertaining story

Really appreciate this author’s other work a lot! This is the story of hervleap year of trying different techniques to make her life work better as a free lancer and mother of a toddler, living in a foreign country. I chose to listen to this book to learn some ways to improve my own life skills. I found the story entertaining while driving or doing housework but did not learn anything for my own application. I might try tapping however..,

A worthy follow up

Often follow up stories run out of material, but Russell found a way to keep me entertained without losing her groove. The narrator continues to be delightful as well.

Witty, practical, like a wise and charming friend.

Would you consider the audio edition of Leap Year to be better than the print version?

Listening to the audio version is like having a clever friend over for a heart-to-heart chat. With tea, of course, because she's British. And 'biscuits', because she's always talking about 'bisuits' which I'm pretty sure are cookies, so I'm in. I was listening while doing dishes and I felt like I was curled up in a comfy chair, and the world seemed... more acheivable.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Helen, the author, is very relatable, and she adds great research to the questions we all have about why we hesitate, and how we can get up off the couch and do all the things we say we want to do. If you've got decisions you are faced with, big or the endless daily slog, Helen's story will help you think it through and take action in your life.

Which character – as performed by Lucy Price-Lewis – was your favorite?

Price-Lewis has a great voice for this book. She's typically speaking in Helen's voice, and I appreciated how she subtly shifts her voice for one-time or recurring characters, such as Helen's husband aka LEGO Man. I loved listening.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I really had an 'oh crap!' moment of realizing where in my life I am mired in indecision and how much a lack of action makes me feel like I'm swimming in mud.

Any additional comments?

I loved Helen's first book, "The Year of Living Danishly", also.