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A review by ahbartlett
Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown
3.75
I think I would’ve rated this higher had I not listened to it on audio, but oh well, you live and you learn. Despite this probably being better as a textual read, I will say that Brené Brown is a great audiobook narrator, and has a gift for making this material engaging! Loved that she repeated sentences that would be in bold in the physical book and included off the cuff quips and examples too that weren’t on the page.
Overall this was a valuable resource and listen as I seek to name emotions with more precision (this book was quasi homework for therapy). In this sense, the book accomplished its goals and I have already adapted some of the language I use in relation to my own emotions.
I think the couple of “issues” I had were:
- Brené describes on different occasions in Atlas of the Heart how she is an inductive researcher, and this book very much follows that approach. I love inductive, grounded theory research and I’m glad she’s outlining its value here! However, I actually think this book would have worked better for the gen pop audience if she’d outlined her findings deductively. Exploring 80+ emotions wherein there is quite a lot of overlap is a bit repetitive to read/listen to; although she ties it up nicely in the final chapter and illustrates how she was able to derive a theory of emotion from this research, as the reader this payoff is a bit less satisfying. The ending feels repetitive rather than revelatory as a result.
- This book references her other books A LOT. Like, maybe too much? Understandable as she’s been researching emotions for 20+ years but this entry also feels less novel than previous works. It feels like more of a call to action to read her other works rather than a self-contained entry of original thought.
- I actually think her treatment of some emotions was really a bit too sparse. The section on hubris was reflective of this in my opinion, as one example.
Atlas of the Heart is not a traditional book; you should not read it chapter by chapter, but instead by the themes that resonate most with you. You will have a more significant reading experience that way - and this is how I plan to reread it moving forward! On the whole, though, it mostly felt like a summative piece rather than novel research. But when you’re a much celebrated, impactful researcher like Brené, that still makes for a pretty damn good read.
Overall this was a valuable resource and listen as I seek to name emotions with more precision (this book was quasi homework for therapy). In this sense, the book accomplished its goals and I have already adapted some of the language I use in relation to my own emotions.
I think the couple of “issues” I had were:
- Brené describes on different occasions in Atlas of the Heart how she is an inductive researcher, and this book very much follows that approach. I love inductive, grounded theory research and I’m glad she’s outlining its value here! However, I actually think this book would have worked better for the gen pop audience if she’d outlined her findings deductively. Exploring 80+ emotions wherein there is quite a lot of overlap is a bit repetitive to read/listen to; although she ties it up nicely in the final chapter and illustrates how she was able to derive a theory of emotion from this research, as the reader this payoff is a bit less satisfying. The ending feels repetitive rather than revelatory as a result.
- This book references her other books A LOT. Like, maybe too much? Understandable as she’s been researching emotions for 20+ years but this entry also feels less novel than previous works. It feels like more of a call to action to read her other works rather than a self-contained entry of original thought.
- I actually think her treatment of some emotions was really a bit too sparse. The section on hubris was reflective of this in my opinion, as one example.
Atlas of the Heart is not a traditional book; you should not read it chapter by chapter, but instead by the themes that resonate most with you. You will have a more significant reading experience that way - and this is how I plan to reread it moving forward! On the whole, though, it mostly felt like a summative piece rather than novel research. But when you’re a much celebrated, impactful researcher like Brené, that still makes for a pretty damn good read.