toggle_fow's reviews
1010 reviews

I was hoping this book had some magic bullet that would suddenly unlock the unknown secret to happiness. Unfortunately, it has no magic bullet. It has all the things my mom tried to tell me -- the things I always rolled my eyes at. However, as is often true for some reason, this book's advice is easier to listen to than that of one's mom.

Some things missed the mark for me. I am haunted by the need for perfection, but I am the common, garden variety "Paralyzed Lazy Perfectionist" in contrast to Nataly Kogan's "Can't Stop Won't Stop Perfectionist" so some of her issues weren't quite as relatable to me. Most of the points, though, were right on the mark.

Some highlights of my mom's classic advice, made more palatable from the mouth of a stranger:

• Let go of the idea that perfection is attainable.

• Basking in the joy of little ordinary good things is the foundation of happiness: not the huge, milestone achievements that you think will make you happy.

• Daily, practiced gratefulness for what goes right is the only way to combat the brain's instinctive tendency to predominantly focus on and notice all the bad.

• Choosing to see the good isn't self-delusional. It is exercising your free choice to define whether to write your life story in lines of suffering or happiness.

There is quite a bit more, and several hard-hitting quotes I would include, except it's not politic to include quotes of not-yet-published books. The only point where I regressed to my teenage self and rolled my eyes so hard I could see my own brain was at the "You don't have to. You GET to!" part. I guess I'm just not mature enough to swallow that one yet. Sorry Mom.

This book is full of information. It covers the societal transition to the modern "extrovert ideal" our schools and workplaces seem geared to now. It dives into neuroscience, correlating something called "high reactivity" and something else called "sensitivity" to introversion. It spends a lot of time examining the mechanics of what it is to be an introvert in today's social climate.

This is all interesting in a "huh I never knew that" documentary sort of way. A decent amount of it will probably resonate with introverts, especially the parts talking about group dynamics and the efficacy of working alone. Introverts in general, especially the ones who read books about themselves, seem to have a tendency toward the defensive self-righteousness of a bitter minority; there's an amount of that here, but not all that much honestly, which is nice.

My hope for this book was that it would show me ways to maximize my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. The tagline is "the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking" right? I was eager to discover what powers I should be taking advantage of and what strategies I should employ. Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot of that type of practical, applied content here. There was a chapter on how to nurture introverted children, and a chapter on faking extroversion (not even really how to, more like "you have to do it, but don't do it TOO much") and that was about the limit.

The chapters examining the ups and downs of trying to function as an introvert in modern society, when loudness is seen as leadership and almost all work is group work, were certainly interesting to read. Like the fact that extroverts are better leaders with passive underlings, whereas introverts make better leaders of groups made up of self-directed, initiative-taking types -- I never knew that before, but it makes sense. Fundamentally, though, I know what it is to be an introvert. It's always nice to get some vindication and fuel for my defensive self-righteousness and all, but a whole book of that seems somewhat extraneous.

I also wasn't terribly impressed with the large amount of time this book spent on high-reactiveness and "sensitivity." The neuroscience of this is fascinating enough, but I wasn't convinced that introvertedness and high-reactiveness were more than somewhat correlated. Certainly they seem related, but focusing so much on both of these things seemed to narrow the scope of the book to only looking at one subset of introverts. I wish this section had been either an aside, much smaller than it was, or that it could have been an entire book of its own; you would have needed almost that much time and effort to examine the actual relationship between being an introvert and being high-reactive.

Whenever you have a spiritual question that other people:

a) get mad at you for asking
b) can't even understand
c) don't answer deep enough

...You can always ask C.S. Lewis.

A few parts of this, such as his description of what he as a theistic evolutionist imagines the Fall was like, and his guesses about the spiritual nature of animals, were pure speculation. Most of this book, though, spins lovely, inevitable sense out of confusion as masterfully as Lewis nearly always does.

Very interesting in a Criminal Minds sort of way. The premise of this book is that you should listen to your intuition, because it is unconsciously cataloging all sorts of things that your logical mind will only realize after the fact. Lots of examples of people who just "knew something was wrong" somehow and got out of the situation, or people who DIDN'T and had something terrible happen to them.

I'm not too terribly sure how useful all this will be when you're walking home and get randomly attacked by a serial killer. After all, de Becker claims that your intuition would warn you anyway whether you read the book or not; if your intuition doesn't warn you, or if it's warning you all the time about things that do turn out to be innocuous, there's not much more hidden in this book that will help you out in that situation.

The Gift of Fear does have a lot to say, though, if you've ever dated/been in a relationship with/tried to get out of a relationship with a dangerous or abusive person. It covers a lot of wise, useful concepts from danger signs of future abuse in people you might date, to how to deal with stalkers, and the best way to leave abusive situations.

Very interesting.

Gladwell's claim is that success is as much a measure of 1) luck and 2) social culture as it is of ability.

At first glance, a lot of this seemed to be the "they succeeded because of their attitude" kind of stereotype-based social science that called back to the "protestant work ethic" of Samuel Huntington. As the book went on, though, his examples and analysis were much more convincing than I expected them to be. It does make you feel kind of helpless, since the book is arguing that if you weren't born in the lucky right era or to the right family you're basically out of luck, but it is absolutely intriguing conceptually.

This book is founded on the dangerous false premise that "we are all God" and is decorated with a heavy, suffocating layer of mysticism. However, its practical advice for a healthy mental approach to life is actually pretty solid, if you can sift through all the woo-woo.

I read these books hoping that someday, someone will tell me something other than: "Yes, you have to do hard things." I don't WANT to do hard things. I want to sit in my pajamas in bed under my 6 weighted blankets eating ice cream and reading and writing stories for the rest of my life. That's ALL. Unfortunately, I have tried this, and it actually leads to depression rather than to happiness, so I had to throw out that approach to life.

As these types of books do, The Happiness Project leans on the author's life, personal reflections, and humor to provide upwards of eighty percent of its content. You learn an awful lot about Gretchen; sometimes I identified with her (the desire for legitimacy) and sometimes I cringed a little bit (her pushiness, and constant unkindness to her husband). Around the fluff, though, there is quite a bit of interesting information and some sadly valid insights about happiness.

A sample:

• It takes 5 positive marital actions to repair the damage of 1 negative one

• Happiness comes from "an atmosphere of growth" -- from learning and overcoming and reaching for goals rather than from achieving goals (I HATE THIS but I know it's true??)

• Women test as having more empathy towards people than men do, but they both test as having the same amount of empathy towards animals

• Some things contribute massively to your overall happiness, but are unpleasant to do or experience

• Quite a bit of happiness is people-centered. Although maintaining relationships can be annoying and involve an awful amount of work, it pays big happiness dividends

Sheer malevolence motivated me to seek this book out.

I had heard so much about this book that I honestly couldn't take ONE more person wanting to rave to me about Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life. My soul filled with pure, distilled hatred, I meant to get my hands on this book and systematically rip it apart line by line. In my resentment I just knew that the book HAD to be trash and I set out to prove it.

I still stand ready to kill anyone attempting to slobber their adoration for this book all over me. (It's fine if you like it! Just don't talk to ME about it.) Unfortunately, I can't exactly write the scorching, acidic review that I was hoping to write, either. The problem with this book is that it's massively bloated, rambly, and long-winded, not that its main premise is wrong.

The central idea of 12 Rules for Life is just that: Peterson puts forward 12 rules by which to live. He believes that these, if followed, will grant people meaningful, fulfilling lives. If you're expecting, like, psychology or brain science, there's hardly any of that here. This is more of a self-help book, along the lines of The Happiness Project, if it were written by an extreme intellectual who spends all day pondering philosophy.

The rules themselves are almost wholly unobjectionable, and you would hear them in one form or another from any source of worthwhile life improvement advice. Things like "assume the person you are listening to might know something you don't" and "compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today" and "make friends with people who want the best for you." Who could have a problem with things like that? Not me. The three stars I gave this book are for the two or three pages in every chapter where Peterson dishes out valuable and hard-hitting perspective shifts.

One of his foundational premises is that meaning instead of happiness should be the goal of life. Life involves suffering, he says. The way people seek happiness is to throw themselves into momentary feelgood experiences and flee from suffering, which only leads to a cycle of being increasingly more anxious and self-destructive. Meaning, which truly makes life bearable, comes from doing worthwhile things, pushing yourself, and growing. This is unfortunately true, even though I hate it.

Taking responsibility? "Volunteering" for life? Practicing gratitude instead of hiding behind protective nihilism? Disgusting. Ridiculous. I don't enjoy the fact that he's right, but I can't deny it.

Now, if he only spent two or three pages of chapter actually discussing that chapter's rule, what did he spend all the rest on? If you're wondering that, I can't tell you. I honestly don't know.

He talks... a lot.

Peterson likes archetypes and symbolism, so I will outline for you an archetypal 12 Rules for Life chapter:

1. Amusing or personal anecdote introducing the rule.
2. General explanation of the rule
3. Something about Freud or Jung (or both) and the primordial depths of the human psyche
4. Men and women are very different and here is how and why (it's about breeding and reproduction)
5. Genesis 1-4
6. Sociobiological theorizing linking modern people's behavior to the life of a long-ago genetic ancestor (IT'S ABOUT BREEDING AND REPRODUCTION)
7. Communism, fascism, and a book called The Gulag Archipelago
8. DOMINANCE HIERARCHY
9. One or two pages re-summarizing the rule but not really tying it back to anything else

Salt to taste and blend until smooth, and this list makes up the content of basically any given chapter in this book. Why is Genesis 1-4 necessary to cover in a chapter on "treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping"? I may just not be subtil or sophisticated enough to understand the complex philosophy going on in these thirty-page chapters, but I cannot escape the conclusion that Peterson could have written 70% less and had a better book. I hope you can see what I mean.

The genuinely problematic things are sprinkled in sparingly:

• Peterson's ideology is that through hard work and good character you can morally redeem humanity and make the world into Paradise, so, while he likes Christianity a lot, he criticizes it for its ideas that salvation cannot be achieved through works, and Paradise is reserved for the afterlife; thus, he misses the entire point of Christianity and distorts all the scripture he won't stop harping on.

• Lots and lots of talk about gender. While I don't disagree with all of his thoughts, I do disagree with some, and I honestly don't know why he included any of them in the book. Peterson is VERY in love with manly toughness, and not being a sensitive pansy with feelings. Almost every mention of women is in the context of their all-important role as wife/mother/choosy sexual partner who bestows access to her reproductive system only to the most dominant of the hordes of slavishly begging men. (Peterson is not an incel, but boy you can see why the incels would listen to him.)

• One chapter about taking responsibility instead of blaming others tries to exhort you to fix your own failings because they're the only things under your control, but the hypothetical stories he tells verge on victim blaming.

• He says that boys don't compete with girls because they "can't win." A girl can win honor by winning against a girl, and double honor winning against a boy, but a boy can win honor only by winning against boys. This may be true in the example he uses: a physical fistfight. How is this true, though, when a girl and a boy play wall ball on the playground? He says this to explain, apparently, the reasons why it is natural and normal that girls are socially allowed to cross over into "boy" things, but boys aren't allowed the reverse.

All of these tangents pop up like raisins in an otherwise delicious cookie. Most of them make you wonder why we are even talking about them. To me, the biggest sin of the book is not the sometimes weird, suspect, or cringey things that are sometimes included. Instead, it's the fact that they were included at all, when 99% of them are ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT.

I'm not even joking, Peterson goes over the first several chapters of Genesis in detail like five times. And I still DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY. I have no problem with Genesis, but it's so repetitive. He hammers you with The Gulag Archipelago in almost every chapter too, and his constant talk about Stalin and Hitler feels canned after the first several chapters. It's almost like he meant every chapter to be read as a separate essay, because then it wouldn't seem like he's repeating himself over and over and has nothing new to say.

The good advice is there, mostly straightforward. Then he veers and starts hitting you with "the snake in the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for the element of chaos present even in the most perfect place," and "Eve shames Adam the same way women spurn men and make them resentful even today." His symbolic interpretations seem based on nothing and are hard to believe in -- and he does this with everything, even Disney movies. All this, and we still don't even know why he brought up Adam and Eve in almost every chapter in the first place.

There is so much empty philosophy and unsubstantiated social theory crammed in every corner of every chapter, and it was extremely difficult for me to follow how all of it was connected to the actual life advice. This is the biggest issue with this book. It's distended far past the healthy structure it should have had. It's collapsing under its own weight.

Peterson needed a middle school writing teacher to put big red question marks by paragraphs and write "HOW DOES THIS SUPPORT THE THESIS?" Really, it's no surprise that his hobby is writing answers on Quora, that hallowed ground of the IQ obsessive. The list of 12 rules might have made it to print, but the rest of this book should have stayed on Quora.

Me reading this book: I will DIE if I don't get to walk across Afghanistan this VERY second.

Me, remembering I'm a girl: Actually... maybe that's reversed.

This book isn't amazing.

It attempts to be a postmortem of the decision-making of the Vietnam War. It succeeds at being a sort of general portrait of three men circling the edges of the war. Despite the title, it spends just as much time on Johnson and Kennedy as it does on Bundy himself.

This book ostensibly distills its thesis into "lessons" learned from Bundy's experience, but the lessons range from painfully obvious to so abstract and general that they're practically useless. They mostly get lost in the meat of the chapter, just parroted once at the beginning and once at the end to give the illusion of structure. Overall, it works as a rough sketch of the dynamics contributing to the war, and an introduction to the major players and events.

McGeorge Bundy, a genius: Look, losing the war is fine, as long as we sacrifice 100,00 lives first.