Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
I picked this book out of irony (re: 2020), but clearly I'm not the target demographic.
Manson's writing starts off charmingly conversational but eventually starts to grate on you, like a cross between some teen WIDPSC competitor's persuasive speech and a long winded Reddit textpost on r/seduction. His ideas were either an repackaging of other philosophers with nonsensical Words and Metaphors He Capitalised (with the glorification of Nietzsche and Kant) or reckless assertions. I'm not opposed to this style in and of itself (Wait but Why is fantastic, and I like Manson's blog well enough), but in book form it becomes tedious very fast. True, there were some interesting points, but its a bad sign when you skip to the bibliography and get excited because you find out there are 70 pages less pages to read.
I did like the bizarre 'robot overlords' twist at the end though, which was so left field I had to laugh.
1.5*
Manson's writing starts off charmingly conversational but eventually starts to grate on you, like a cross between some teen WIDPSC competitor's persuasive speech and a long winded Reddit textpost on r/seduction. His ideas were either an repackaging of other philosophers with nonsensical Words and Metaphors He Capitalised (with the glorification of Nietzsche and Kant) or reckless assertions. I'm not opposed to this style in and of itself (Wait but Why is fantastic, and I like Manson's blog well enough), but in book form it becomes tedious very fast. True, there were some interesting points, but its a bad sign when you skip to the bibliography and get excited because you find out there are 70 pages less pages to read.
I did like the bizarre 'robot overlords' twist at the end though, which was so left field I had to laugh.
1.5*
There are some interesting ideas, information, and historical anecdotes presented in this book. As someone who loved listening to the audiobook of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, I was mostly disappointed. Part of my disappointment is that Manson narrated this book himself and he's, unfortunately, not a good narrator. I found his performance bland and monotonous. There were also times I thought his ideas sounded like white male privilege, which I didn't experience in his first book. I'm left to conclude that while I've grown in the past several years since reading Manson's first book, Manson has not. Too bad.
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
I liked this book better than his other in this series. This one felt more fact-based and I loved all the wild examples he chose, especially when they had to do with psychology and human behavior.
Difficult to review because while I appreciate Manson’s wit, dry humor, and style, and I find some of his arguments compelling and valid (a decrease in survival pain leading to an increase in comfort “pain” leading to emotional fragility) I also deeply disagree with and find rational dead ends in his conclusions about the lack of value in hope and the meaninglessness of existence
A needlessly condescending voice cobbling together a haphazard narrative of "hope." Was it the dumbed-down metaphors to explain psychology that bothered me? The final chapter likening humans to poorly designed ML algorithms? Or perhaps was it the arrogance of Manson thinking he's cracked the code to life? Bonus: a few chapters with some Malcolm Gladwell-esque anecdotes that I'm sure I'll pull out at a dinner party to sound educated.
3.5
The majority of this book felt like I was reading an academic textbook that I still didn’t understand even after reading through it multiple times, and some concepts were way too over simplified that it got confusing. I liked the second half of it better.
The majority of this book felt like I was reading an academic textbook that I still didn’t understand even after reading through it multiple times, and some concepts were way too over simplified that it got confusing. I liked the second half of it better.
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Umm no. I'm not a fan of this one. It's just not for me.