Book Review: Sugar Free Journey

I recently read Sugar Free Journey, the final book in Naomi Kingery's Sugar Free series (all of which can be purchased here). Naomi is known as The Diabetic Diva, and in addition to her several books she also writes a blog about her life with type 1 diabetes, called Live to Love Diabetes. What a dynamo!

Sugar Free Journey is a really creative concept. In it, Naomi uses different kinds of luggage as metaphors for ways of relating to, or carrying, our diabetes. It can be an overt, brightly-colored statement or a heavy and unwieldy burden, meticulously managed and organized or jumbled into a confusing pile of disparate pieces. I like this imagery!

Within the framework of the luggage metaphor Naomi shares her own experiences with, and approaches to, her type 1 diabetes. Her self-examination of the stages she has gone through is impressively thorough, and although I did not personally relate to some of them I did feel inspired to reflect on my own journey with diabetes. I have not engaged in this exercise before, and having the baggage metaphor in mind was really useful to me in trying to identify my variety of relationships with diabetes over time. I think it's a useful exercise!

Naomi's writing is incredibly accessible, and I think would be particularly enjoyable to other young women with diabetes. Her tone is compassionate, positive, genuine and fun, and it's impossible to read her work without wanting to go out for coffee with her... And maybe go shopping :)

Naomi's other books are:

Sugar Free Me

Sugar Free Teens

Sugar Free Support

Thank you for such a wonderful review, Emily! I am so glad that my book was able to help you analyze your own journey in a new way.