Scan barcode
A review by rianaautumn
Adventures in Opting Out: A Field Guide to Leading an Intentional Life by Cait Flanders
3.0
Adventures in Opting Out is part memoir and part self-help by Cait Flanders, whose first book, The Year of Less, was all about her decision to not shop for a year. In this book, Cait guides readers through the stages of "opting out" of different conventional things in life, from drinking or eating meat to moving abroad or choosing to not have children.
I thought this book was...okay. I'm not the biggest fan of self-help books as I find they can be a little insincere and preachy. I would much rather hear about someone's firsthand experience and relate it to my life than have them directly tell me how I should be applying their lessons to my life. Throughout the book, Cait uses a hiking metaphor which I didn't love as I'm not a hiker and often found the metaphor really had to stretch to capture her point.
I did enjoy the local references to Vancouver, as Cait is from Victoria and lived in Squamish, which made the book feel more home-y. And the advice Cait was giving was pretty good. There were definitely a few gems I picked up (though there were others I disagreed with) and it wasn't as preachy as it could have been. I think this book would be more helpful if you had a specific thing in mind that you wanted to opt out of, as applying the advice just more generally to your life is a bit abstract. I do wish this was more memoir - I would have loved to hear more about Cait's slow travel journey - but appreciate that wasn't the book she (or her publishers) wanted to write.
TW: substance abuse
I thought this book was...okay. I'm not the biggest fan of self-help books as I find they can be a little insincere and preachy. I would much rather hear about someone's firsthand experience and relate it to my life than have them directly tell me how I should be applying their lessons to my life. Throughout the book, Cait uses a hiking metaphor which I didn't love as I'm not a hiker and often found the metaphor really had to stretch to capture her point.
I did enjoy the local references to Vancouver, as Cait is from Victoria and lived in Squamish, which made the book feel more home-y. And the advice Cait was giving was pretty good. There were definitely a few gems I picked up (though there were others I disagreed with) and it wasn't as preachy as it could have been. I think this book would be more helpful if you had a specific thing in mind that you wanted to opt out of, as applying the advice just more generally to your life is a bit abstract. I do wish this was more memoir - I would have loved to hear more about Cait's slow travel journey - but appreciate that wasn't the book she (or her publishers) wanted to write.
TW: substance abuse