A review by miss_understanding
Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

2.0

I highlighted more than average in this book, but still it did not really impress me. The reason for this is that the book lacked structure; it's messy, and according to the author, it is so on purpose. About halfway through, he writes: "As you will be aware by now, I am trying to write about the messiness of the world and the messiness of minds by writing a deliberately messy book. That’s my excuse, anyway. Fragments that I hope together make a kind of whole. I hope it all makes sense. Or if it doesn’t make sense, I hope it makes nonsense in ways that might get you thinking." For me, that did not really work. Rather, it gave me the impression that what I was reading was the unfinished, unpolished result of extensive writing therapy - not meant for my eyes, at least not in that form. There were things I recognised and things that I found interesting, but also things that made me uncomfortable, things that made me roll my eyes, things that made me scan/skip pages rather than actually read them. To sum up: some good ideas or sound advice here and there, but overall an unbalanced book, unfortunately. Although that might just be my neurotic side speaking.