Do you second-guess your appeal? Are you in a relationship that is no longer working and haven't found the strength to leave? Are you consumed with self-doubt? The answers may be yes, but the real solution lies in how you deal with the situations. Author Alicia Marie Rivers coined the phrase, "You are as you think you are."

In The Pretty Thoughts of a Hot Chick, Rivers offers a collection of inspirational quotes, mini essays and affirmations to help you think optimistically and turn the negative thoughts in your life into positives. The reflections include: If I want to be treasured, I must first believe in my worth and treasure myself. I will not think negatively I do not believe in my last thought. I am thinking something pretty right now. Life is a banquet and most of us are starving to death. I choose to eat heartily. If I don't think for myself, then someone else will do the thinking for me. From relationships to self-esteem, Rivers provides an array of positive self-talk quotes that become your actions and ultimately your lifestyle to help you become one hot chick

"The Eighth Volume in the ""Deaf Lives Series" "Deaf Lives in Contrast: Two Women's Stories" might seem to bring together polar opposites in the broad range of deaf experience. Yet, as these narratives unfold, the reader will recognize that common threads run through them despite their different circumstances. Mary V. Rivers, who came from a "dirt poor" Cajun family in Louisiana, was only 17 when she married Bruce Rivers, a member of the U.S. Air Force during World War II. She bore three children in quick succession, all boys, and traveled with them to Europe with her husband. When her third son Clay was nearly two, however, she learned that he was deaf. From that time on, she devoted her life to securing a good education for Clay. Dvora Shurman's parents, deaf Jewish immigrants from Russia, met in Chicago after World War I. Both were educated orally, declaring "I am not born deaf. Signing only for born-deaf." They did sign, but they also wanted hearing children, stemming from their own sense of devaluation. Shurman lived a dual life in the deaf and hearing worlds. She saw herself as her deaf parents' ears, their voice to the hearing world, and as sharing with her mother the task of being mother. The resonating theme that echoes with both of these women centers on their resentment of the treatment received by their deaf loved ones. Early in her life, Shurman adopted a slogan with her sister, "'It's Not Fair, ' to rebel against the shaming, the demeaning, our family suffered." After years of struggling for her son, Rivers asserts that "deaf people have a right to prove themselves as first class citizens." Their uncommon stories reveal that they share more in common, a belief in equalrights for all, deaf and hearing.