A review by readerette
Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer

funny informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

This is a nice intro to the immune system, at least from this layperson's perspective. I skipped most of the pictures as I didn't find them helpful (just pretty), but they may work better for you.

I found the grammatical choices distracting at times. It read very conversationally, which was nice given the dense material, but there were plenty of sentences with atypical structures for written material. It felt more stream-of-consciousness to me, but I could have used a little more predictable structure so that the concepts could really be the focus rather than how the words were written.

I also question some of the guidance provided. For instance in the chapter about cancer,
it seems there is a case for staying positive because it reduces stress (which the author shares is good for the immune system) and increases quality of life, even if attitude doesn't affect your survival chances according to the data. It makes sense not to fake it, of course, but it also makes sense to find a way to stay positive given the stress and quality of life factors.
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