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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
This was entertaining and made me think, not always in favor of her position, but that's not always a bad deal. I enjoyed the range of topics, and liked the ones involving her personal experiences the most.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Literary critic Becca Rothfeld argues against the modern inclination toward minimalism, and insteads advocates embracing all the messy and irrepressible things that make the human existence so rewarding.
I am this book's target audience, because like Rothfeld I wonder if in the process of streamlining our world we have reached an unpleasantly bland and bloodless zeitgeist. I enjoy colorful and unusual clothes and furniture. I find the aesthetic of minimalism boring. I love the over the top pulp literature of yesteryears. I don't want the plain book cover, but the one underneath spilling over with art, honest overabundance over artificial order.
And Rothfeld makes that point through examining a variety of subjects, opining with refreshing forcefulness on topics as diverse as decluttering, Sally Rooney's novels, and the impossibility of truly knowing anyone outside the flesh. I did not always agree with her arguments, but even those were fun to engage with, to try on that point of view and chase it down throughout the essay.
My favorite essays were "Having a Cake and Eating It, Too," which is about the human hunger for beauty, and "Our True Entertainment Was Arguing," which explores the concept of equality in love through the medium of the Norman Rush novel Mating, which I am now convinced I really ought to read.
If there's any downside to Rothfeld's philosophical bent, it's that sometimes she leans too esoteric, becomes lost in the weeds and blunt the point she's trying to make. I'm willing to muddle over convoluted phrasing and try to make sense of obscure allusions, but only to an extent. While the general gist of each essay was clear enough throughout, the paths she transverses to make them weren't always sensible, nor some of her assertions very convincing.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
This is such a wonderful collection of essays and thoughts that dives deep into different kinds of minimalism and it’s failures to satisfy human longing, and the way that our culture has decided to make denial a goal instead of supporting peoples wants and needs
ok I tried it twice and just couldn't vibe sorry didn't spark joy #meta
challenging
reflective
medium-paced