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rrthering 's review for:
The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
by Chris Guillebeau
Didn't meet my expectations. This book explores the idea of a "quest," encouraging everyone to take on a difficult quest that aligns with their passions. And while I like that idea, there's just not much insight at all in the book—just lots of common sense instead.
The example stories of quests real people have taken were mostly all extremes (sail around the world by yourself at age 15, not speak for 17 years, etc.) which makes them seem more out-of-reach than serve as inspiration. Also, you only got a page or two about each quest, which really wasn't a deep enough look to provide much value—each is just glossed over.
As a serial expat and slow traveler myself, it was frankly also annoying to read about the author's quest of visiting every country in the world. His tales of accidentally double booking flights (three times!), visiting several countries in a week, and the challenge being in obtaining a visa and being allowed in a country really made me cringe. (I travel to spend long periods of time in a place, to really soak up the environment and culture). Although he says it's not about crossing things off a list, his quest totally appeared to be of that type, in the way that he presented it.
Something felt off about the writing tone, too. There would randomly be a more light-hearted comment in parenthesis that felt out of place. Guess I'm too used to reading geniuses like Bryson and Pollan!
The example stories of quests real people have taken were mostly all extremes (sail around the world by yourself at age 15, not speak for 17 years, etc.) which makes them seem more out-of-reach than serve as inspiration. Also, you only got a page or two about each quest, which really wasn't a deep enough look to provide much value—each is just glossed over.
As a serial expat and slow traveler myself, it was frankly also annoying to read about the author's quest of visiting every country in the world. His tales of accidentally double booking flights (three times!), visiting several countries in a week, and the challenge being in obtaining a visa and being allowed in a country really made me cringe. (I travel to spend long periods of time in a place, to really soak up the environment and culture). Although he says it's not about crossing things off a list, his quest totally appeared to be of that type, in the way that he presented it.
Something felt off about the writing tone, too. There would randomly be a more light-hearted comment in parenthesis that felt out of place. Guess I'm too used to reading geniuses like Bryson and Pollan!