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mashpotato3000 's review for:
I rarely write out reviews on my reads- usually I do just a star rating and shuffle along. HOWEVER, this book was a NF Goodreads Choice winner, so I selected as a title for my book club to read. THANK GOD IT WASNT THE ONLY OPTION. (Other selection was the fiction winner, The Testaments.) I typically dislike "self help" books anyway, but as this book was a winner by vote, I thought it had to have something special- a great author's voice, truly good advice, etc. Instead, I found it vague, unrelatable to anyone who isn't upper-middle-class+, and far too wordy. Seriously, Hollis used so many lines to say things like "of course you can wake up at 5AM to run/write/yoga/whatever and still do your daily tasks! Anyone finds this reasonable!"
As someone who works in libraries and sees people trying every day in so many ways to reach different goals, I was saddened to read this and know it wouldn't help most of our patrons and actually might outright discourage some. Hollis makes sweeping generalizations about barriers that keep people from achieving their goals, then condescends to say it's their own fault/something they can get over (ever heard of trauma??? Yeah maybe don't negate that for people??)/ Or that they're simply not trying enough. I see our patrons and imagine those who work two jobs-one of which is a night shift- try to provide for multiple children as a single parent, and still squeeze time to come to the library to work on a resume or apply for a better job or do school work. And Hollis has the gall to imply individuals like these can so easily adjust their schedules, reconfigure their lives. I cannot stress how disappointed I was with this read.
As someone who works in libraries and sees people trying every day in so many ways to reach different goals, I was saddened to read this and know it wouldn't help most of our patrons and actually might outright discourage some. Hollis makes sweeping generalizations about barriers that keep people from achieving their goals, then condescends to say it's their own fault/something they can get over (ever heard of trauma??? Yeah maybe don't negate that for people??)/ Or that they're simply not trying enough. I see our patrons and imagine those who work two jobs-one of which is a night shift- try to provide for multiple children as a single parent, and still squeeze time to come to the library to work on a resume or apply for a better job or do school work. And Hollis has the gall to imply individuals like these can so easily adjust their schedules, reconfigure their lives. I cannot stress how disappointed I was with this read.