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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
I feel like so much of this book is written about me. In one chapter I'm learning about ways parents can help their introverted kids learn to navigate a social world and recognizing tactics I practice on my own - many of which I wish I'd learned earlier, and would still like to improve on. Definitely an interesting read which had kept me engaged from the start (in spite of a several month long "I'm too busy/distracted to focus on this" reading break).
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Read this one at Tony's insistence. While there were parts -- primarily the scientific and psychological -- that I found extremely interesting, the overall effect is one of a self-help book in disguise, with a helping of whining thrown in. Oh, poor me, I'm an introvert and the world isn't set up for me. Guess what? Tough. And this comes from an introvert -- I've never really bothered categorizing myself in that way, but according to this book, I'm pretty firmly in the intro camp. But the world also isn't set up for women, the working class, the extremely tall, etc. I believe I would have liked it better, had it been more straightforward about its goals. Here are ways to help yourself function in an extroverted world.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This not only helped me to understand myself and my partner -- but helped me to consider how I might lead.
I enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it. I do think it has a major blind spot though in that it doesn't mention neurodivergence even once. Which maybe kind of makes sense given when it was published, but still. People are so much more than just introvert/extrovert, so at times the analysis seemed a bit shallow, lacking.
A good read. As one with more introverted tendencies than extroverted I had several ah-ha moments as I read this book. Now I understand a bit better why staying at home instead of a night out with family or friends is quite often what I long for. But how I can turn into an extrovert when the setting is something I really want to be in.
informative
slow-paced
As an ambivert who has lately lost touch with my introvert side, this book was just what I needed to read
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.
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.