Zelma

3.5/5

a lengthy ad for therapy

3.5

The first half of the book is really strong but then withers away, dragging on, describing just factual events, lacking the philosophical insight which the first half has. It is a worthy read nevertheless.

It might be a good book for someone who doesn't know anything about habits. However, it doesn't bring anything new or interesting.

I got a reminder of why I don't like self-help as a genre.

A good part of this collection just flew over my head. I did not have the energy to check all the references that only americans or californians or new yorkers and so on get.
Some essays just hit the right spot.
Incredible writing, of course.

I will be returning to it.

I had a completely different impression of what this book would contain. I'm not sure where that impression came from, but once I started reading, I was rather disappointed.

First and foremost, this book is a product of its time and culture. By today's standards, it feels outdated and shallow - though perhaps that speaks more of our culture's progress.

That said, there are still aspects worth critiquing, even considering that the book is 25 years old. It leans heavily on quotes from other authors, often to the point where it feels like they were collected simply to validate the author's ideas rather than support them meaningfully. There's a noticeable lack of arguments backed by anything resembling evidence, though, to be fair, the book never explicitly claims to be objective—despite frequently using rhetoric that suggests otherwise.

The most annoying part, though, is the pompous writing style, presenting the author's views as absolute truths. She frequently refers to “many people nowadays,” yet as a reader, I have no sense of whether this reflects a broader trend or just something a friend mentioned over dinner. It is difficult to take the arguments and ideas seriously as the source is unreliable, often contradicting herself throughout the book.

There are still some valid ideas here, but they could have easily been condensed into a magazine article rather than extending them to a book that repeats itself, droning ever on.