The Misfit's Manifesto

There are some amazing quotes and thoughts in the book. I feel conflicted about it. I appricaite the points of view presented and enjoyed hearing the stories of misfits. Sometimes it seems to present misfit's as special club that many of us don't qualify for.

I picked this up on impulse because I liked the cover and some of Lidia Yuknavitch's other works. I didn't realize until the end that this is based on a TED talk, but once I saw that detail I was like, oh yeah that makes sense, for what this is, which is sort of a collection of memoir-ish self help-ish essays with long quote-testimonials from other misfits.

Yuknavitch's main thesis is that pretty much everyone thinks of themself as being a misfit in some way but only a few people are actually fucked up enough to be REAL misfits, like for example if, like Yuknavitch, the death of your infant daughter leads you to have a mental breakdown which leads to you being homeless for several months. And also people who aren't real misfits should have more empathy for the real misfits, which sure, I buy that. It's certainly encouraging for people who have been through the kind of severe trauma Yuknavitch and her fellow misfits quoted here (mostly her students and fellow writers) have been through.

I dunno; it's a short read with some beautiful writing, but also...I haven't watched her TED talk yet but maybe you could just watch that and get the same effect?