A review by jennifer1130
Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Fine by Derren Brown

challenging informative slow-paced

1.0

This book does not feel very accessible which is a shame as I'm a big Derren Brown fan and interested in psychology. I had hoped to enjoy this book but it felt like a long drawn out chore. The book is very intellectual and either assumes or requires quite a good fundamental understanding of certain topics, namely philosophy and the beginnings of psychology. If you don't already have this fundamental understanding then you instead require the ability to retain lots of small pieces of historical information in a short period that are later replayed out over again in different chapters. As someone who struggles to retain lots of information in this way it lost me in lots of sections.

The book has a very male perspective, despite the authors clear attempts to make it my inclusive with the regular occurrence of 'she' pronouns when sharing examples. The nature of the history of philosophy and psychology is from a male viewpoint. There is very little reference to more modern-day experts and very little to no references to female experts.

The main interesting part for me is when we hear Debra's story as it was something more engagable. I also enjoyed some of Derren's own personal stories. The reference sections however were long and laborious.

One of these chapters totals 90 pages and the book is over 500 pages in length. It's not one you can dip in and out of.