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Chicken Soup for the Raped Soul



The Chicken Soup book people are banking on a new pool of readers: divorced, cancer-addled rape victims. Thank God for them.

Billed as "The most controversial book ever," the new Thank God I, the first in a series, would be nothing if it weren't for your crapass luck. Its promotional video is seemingly ripped right out of the Patrick Swayze scenes in Donnie Darko. And the books are the Traveling Wilburys of self-help franchises, calling upon a supergroup of writing ringers, The Riches Within author John Demartini, The Passion Test author Janet Atwood among them. But its meat and potatoes are the everyday horrible experiences to which we call can relate. "Thousands of writers will reveal gut-wrenching accounts of how they transformed perceived crisis into blessings," series creator John Castagnini says in a press release. It only gets worse from there.

Lost a loved one? About to die yourself? Got AIDS? Cancel those therapy appointments and drop to your knees. "By sharing compelling accounts of how personal adversities turned into triumphs, the series deems to transform lives through the healing powers of gratitude," the book's press release states. "Our collection of stories will resonate universal vibrations of healing the globe by delivering a strong message, that gratitude is the key to finding a better self on the other side of pain ... Thank God I have Cancer, Thank God I was Raped, Thank God I have an eating Disorder."

By its own logic, should these books get no Oprah love, sell scant few copies, and flop tremendously, we expect its publisher, naturally, to Thank God.

By Tyler Gray   04/10/08 10:20 AM
Related: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Debra Lafave, Tome Deaf
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