Book Review: What Could Possibly Go Wrong??? How To Go From Completely Clueless To Totally Prepared

Review by Timothy Gamble

Survivor Jane is the author of a new survival and preparedness book, What Could Possibly Go Wrong??? How To Go From Completely Clueless To Totally Prepared, aimed especially at women (but can be useful for anyone). She is the proprietor of the SurvivorJane.com website, and was featured on season 4, episode 5 of Doomsday Preppers.

This book tells you, as its name implies, what could possibly go wrong, and more importantly, what you can do about it. But what makes this book stand out from the many other preparedness and survival books on the market today is the style in which it is written, a much more conversational tone without the doom-and-gloom so common in other books of the genre (which often come across as lecturing their readers, rather than talking to them). She also uses less technical jargon and acronyms, fully explaining them when she does. She makes use of humor and personal experiences to make her points. This style makes her book less intimidating to those new to preparedness and survival. Coming from a woman's perspective, with a woman's tone, women might find it speaking to them in a way that is more natural and comfortable.

A quick look at the chapter titles gives an idea of the scope of the book:

1. Disasters Come in All Size
2. Mental Preparedness
3. Self-Defense
4. Survival Mindset
5. Health and Hygiene
6. Fitness
7. Medical- First Aid
8. Food
9. Survival Gear
10. Sustainable Living
11. Finance
12. Survival Skills
13. The Government

One aspect I really like about Survivor Jane's book is that it covers several areas in detail that are often given little attention elsewhere. For example, mental preparedness is an area I find to almost always be mentioned, but rarely discussed, in most survival books. Typically, survival authors give a line (or, at most, a paragraph) stating that mental preparedness is important, then go on to completely ignore the subject for the rest of the book. In Survivor Jane's book, mental preparedness is given an entire chapter (ch. 2), or two if you count the closely related Survival Mindset (ch. 4).

The chapter on Self-Defense (ch. 3) thankfully goes beyond the typical guns & ammo (which are very useful, but are actually the last line of defense after the other lines have failed). She explains what can happen (knowing is the first step in preparing, as Survivor Jane notes). She gives some great ideas on improving your situational awareness (critical for self-defense). She discusses improvised weapons for when you don't have your gun for whatever reason. There is a section of cheap (or even free) ideas for improving your home security. And there is even a section on women disguising themselves as men for protection (something I had never thought of before reading it in her book).

This book makes a great general introduction to survival and preparedness. It is especially useful to those folks who might find typical survival and preparedness books uninteresting, intimidating, or otherwise difficult to understand. You can find What Could Possibly Go Wrong??? on Amazon in either paperback or kindle versions.

Other Books By Survivor Jane:

• Survivor Jane's Guide To Emergency/Survival Hygiene: A Prepper "Cookbook" for Making Survival Personal Hygiene Products
• Where There is no Cosmetic Counter: How Not to Look Like a Zombie - Even After the End of the World As You Know It
• Puzzling Over Preparedness: Survivor Jane's Word Search Puzzle 

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