Man's Search for Meaning

I think that's the single absolutely painful books to read, that I haven't abandoned and read till the end.

There's plentiful of reviews saying “may there's something in me, because I don't like it”, as well as “I'm giving it 3* as it will look bad if I give it only 2*”.

The book is a mess. The first part is supposed to be autobiographical, but it has tons of issues. It's lacking cohesiveness (story doesn't match in a few places). Then there's the constant repetition (how bad the soup was, how hard the walking in the snow was). I get it, I am sure it was unbelievable awful and painful. But the more times the author needs to repeat himself, the weaker the book becomes, as he wasn't able to express his feelings and make you re-experience them. Not to mention how weird it seems if you read about his real life, like he spent 4 days on Auschwitz and total 5 months on those camps (not three years as he writes). I am not saying his suffering is a lie or something like that. I'm just saying I don't understand how such a slow, messed up and non-engaging “autobiography” might be liked by many.

Second part was just excruciating to read. Extremely disconnected, repeatable, full of semi-explained thoughts. He's constantly repeating how people's suffer CAN BE and IS something they can find meaning in. How? Doesn't say. Why just a handful of people manage to achieve this? Doesn't say (besides “it's hard”). There's his new system that can help people - well great, here's a long list of fancy words that you cannot even read, that he partially invented himself, and surely this means it all makes sense.

He wrote it himself - this short book cannot give you an explanation on what my theory is. I don't see any reason as why anyone should read a faulty and dull “almost autobiography”, followed by “almost explanation” of a theory.

The book has some great ideas in it, I must admit. But they're buried in an immense pile of hard to swallow nonsense. And at the end, it's mostly quotations from other people.

I wish I read a 5-10 page summary, instead of spending time on this book. Or maybe I'm just extremely disappointed why one of the most marketed books turned out to be such a pain to read...