Book reviews

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland | Review

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I haven’t written a review in a month and a half, so I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to.

Pages: 418

Genre: young adult, historical fiction, zombies

Synopsis

Jane McKeene goes to Miss Preston’s School for Combat in Baltimore because zombies have taken over the cities and girls like Jane are needed to stop them. The civil war of America never really ended, the two sides needed to decide the undead had become their biggest enemy. Being the coloured daughter of a white Southern woman has always made Jane’s life difficult, but now people with her skin is treated like they’re disposable, fighting the undead to protect wealthy white people. With her curiousity, spontaneity and fighting skills Jane is caught up in a big conspiracy as families in the town are going missing and certain political groups are promising the return to safety.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: three

I’d heard a lot of good words before the release of this book and was pretty excited to read about zombies and girls who are awesome at fighting with weapons. My opinions on this book is kind of mixed, both because of not personally matching with the surrounding plot and other things that confused me. It’s still a book I would recommend!

My big problem with historical books and westerns – which this book was going towards the last half – is that it’s so boring to read over and over that the girl is constantly put down. Like there’s no feminism, we get it, stop mixing it into every other sentence. And this book created this balance so well, it made points out of how different this society was from ours, without making it completely unenjoyable reading experience, because Jane and her friends were awesome girls who knew their courage and value. The way it dealt with racism was the same, in that racism was everywhere, as it was one of the main parts of the story. But you still got to see these pockets of coexistence carved out, like the estate Jane left, and how horrifically it could go when someone bigoted and racist was introduced to them. There’s so many horrifyingly racist scenes in here, showing how it tears at the characters, and I think that’s very well done and important.

I love politics in books, usually. But I don’t think this book went deep enough that it mattered much. I’m still confused about how I feel about thins. Maybe I feel like the book alluded to things all the time, but I didn’t really get any message from it except maybe how quick racism can develop in crises when someone need to be blamed and how dangerous division is. It’s certainly a book with a awesome, black heroine. It’s not just a book about zombies, though, but it didn’t quite switch over to politics within the story and like the bigger conspiracies either. I think the mix is what I didn’t like personally – it goes from mystery and boarding school to sudden danger and a more western-like survival story with religious fundamentalists everywhere to full-on war with zombies. With funny, snarky Jane moments sprinkled in there. It sounds interesting, but it’s a lot. While I liked some parts, it felt like others weren’t completely cohesive, which contributed to the feeling of it being a lot put into one book.

I’ll most likely read the next book because I’m curious about where it’s going to go, with Jane and Katherine. I liked Jane sometimes, but the mix of grave danger and humor makes me compare her to like Percy Jackson-type lead characters. I can’t really think of any flaws Jane has that messes up or otherwise interact with the story. Like she talks back to teachers, that’s it. She always takes charge, to great sucess, and while it was a relief to see things go down well, the knowledge that it would because of her drew me out of the story.

Exciting Book Releases 2019 (part 1)

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The Wicked King by Holly Black

Release date: 8. January 2019

Why I want to read it: It’s the sequel to The Cruel Prince, where no character were good and I fell in love with Jude. She revealed a lot on the end of the first book, which sets this one up for success, I hope.

 

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Heartstopper Vol. 1 by Alice Oseman

Release date: fall of 2018, but I knew of it just to late and book depository aren’t selling it before

Why I want to read it: everything Alice does seems to turn into magic and by what I’ve seen, this seems like no exception

 

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The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2) by Maureen Johnson

Release date: 22. January 2019

Why I want to read it: I’ve read Deathless by the author and liked it, as the sequel isn’t due any time soon, I’ll definitely pick up this book. And the name!

 

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On The Come Up by Angie Thomas

Release date: 5. February 2019

Why I want to read it: The Hate U Give, the author’s first book, blew me away.

 

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The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown

Release date: 7. February 2019

Why I want to read it: I’ve been following Savannah Brown for a couple years and I’m so excited for her debut novel!

 

 

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Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11) by Patricia Briggs

Release date: 5. March 2019

Why I want to read it: Do I actually want to? I love Mercy Thompson, but every storyline is already used it seems like. This might be the last book I’m reading about her. and promised lots of queer-ness

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik | Book Review

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Pages: 480

Genre: fantasy

ss2ss

Synopsis

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders… but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed–and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold.

But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth–especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: two stars

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The official synopsis doesn’t do the plot justice in its variety. It’s not only a story about Miryem and the cold magical Staryk king, it has multiple pov’s where Wanda – a girl the same age that Miryem she takes on as employee – and Wanda’s brothers Sergey and Stepon are all big parts of the plot. Also there’s the king of the human lands and his bride by arranged marriage who has borrowed some magical powers to escape. It seemed like a weird choice of storytelling until the characters interacted and then the end of the plot seemed very obvious all of a sudden.

The ideas in this book were good, the focus on family made it even better. But often I found myself not knowing which pov the book had switched to, especially as the characters finds themselves travelling to each other places, making it impossible to keep them straight. I did not care for the “human” king and his bride, her name Irina wasn’t even given before an unnaturally long time had passed. There were certainly elements I liked, enough not to put the book down, but it felt so badly executed. The trap with having serious and calculative characters are that they cannot all be like that, or the magic of even a fantasy book will disappear. There were no lightness, except for when mother-figures trying to give comfort, and no humour. The first hundred pages are all Miryem showing how she built up a little empire of money-loaning after her father didn’t have the cold heart needed for it. And that’s somewhat interesting, but wasn’t done very well. I might as well go pick up economy textbooks, and get something actually useful out of reading about it.

For being a fantasy book there were little magic and a lot of corrupted people and demons/creatures, who seemed to have no desires or joys in their lives. The motivation and message are hiding from me here. The self-important seriousness of it all, from the characters to the writing, brought this book down. Miryem might always have an answer to every challenge, but it gave another level of unconcern to even to her sacrifices. I loved Uprooted, but would recommend “Deathless” by Catherynne Valente instead of this book.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo | Review

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Pages: 390

Genre: fiction, lgbt characters

 

Synopsis

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Written with Reid’s signature talent for creating “complex, likable characters” (Real Simple?, this is a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means -and what it costs- to face the truth.

The audiobook

Evelyn Hugo sounds just like a movie star. Monique is done by another narrator and they both do a really good job. It really made the story come alive, like Evelyn was telling her own biography, and Monique’s thoughts on it.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: five

fem

Evelyn Hugo, the movie star, was such an interesting character, especially seen through the journalist Monique’s eyes. She’s into playing games, and it has gotten her far in her life, as she’s gotten out of poverty and into mansions. This book brings up ideas around power, it has all the glam of a 1950’s star, but also a lot of moral dilemmas as Evelyn talks about the decisions she’s made in her life and how she rarely regrets them, even those with huge consequences. I really liked her friend-group/family she built up, really this book turned from ambition to impotance of community and love. Of how to deal with loss. And queer characters and love!

“It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.” 

The story itself seems so real, several times I went to google Evelyn Hugo, to find out a piece of info, before realizing that of course, she was fictional. While I liked Monique, the character, I didn’t care for her descriptions of her own life. It’s less spectacular than Evelyn’s, sure, but there’s ways to find joy even in a “normal” life. The miserable soon-to-be divorced journalist negative view of herself storyline is quite boring and I didn’t get it. The twist of the story blew me away. I didn’t see it coming at all, and it made the entire story make sense, every doubt Monique had, was cleared up.

It’s a fictional biography of a fictional 1950’s movie stars life, and it does it so spectacularly well, making quite an impact on me. This book also encourages you to take more of the opportunities you get, to not be so timid about ambition. I don’t think it’s the right way to look at life, putting your needs before everyone else, but it’s one that should be considered in more situations, especially by women in careers.  

Short reviews: aliens & feminism

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Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A short book packed with useful and practical advice to how to raise a girl to have complete self-worth and make them prepared, without setting unreachable standards for how to raise a kid. It’s very matter of fact and inclusive, a modern view and setting for feminism and a woman’s place in society (which is everywhere – you just got to get your children to believe it). Wholeheartedly recommend it to every adult who in any part participate in raising a kid. 5/5 stars. 

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everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by jomny sun

This book is so special, it’s a graphic novel in very simplistic style, about a lonely alien that’s sent to earth to observe humans and instead meets a lot of different animals and tries to learn from them. It’s just a wonderful, wholesome, calming read with a alien feeling alien to other aliens and then finding friends in strange places. When ur too tired to read anymore you can just sit there and colour in the illustrations, like I absolutely did. 4/5 stars.

 

 

 

SPOILERY Review: An Absolutely Remakable Thing by Hank Green

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So I wrote another spoiler-free review here, where I gave the book five out of five stars. I’ve never made two parts reviews, but I really want to geek out over this book honestly.

So I just listened to an interview by Hank where he said the book was born out around a lot of individual scenes and trying to write a story around them, especially the grape jelly scene. Did he mean Carl making a person turn into grape jelly? Jeez. That’s a great way to start writing a book, and makes my ideas feel a bit more valid.

Anyway, here’s a lot of moments I liked:

  • “You’re a digital girl, April, in a digital world. We all know how to perform.” Already on page 10 I realized that Hank Green’s real life thoughts and concerns would slip through into the book in form of Andy’s bluntness.
  • Maya. All of Maya’s parts. That girl is awesome.
  • When “Don’t Stop Me Now” was first mentioned was when I realized I would have a lot of songs stuck in my brain reading this book. The wikipedia puzzle was creative.
  •  “So here’s a really stupid thing about the world: The trick to looking cool is not caring whether you look cool. So the moment you achieve perfect coolness is simultaneously the moment that you actually, completely don’t care.” I need more time to consider the degree of truth to that. I have a few friends that have become models, they’re also the people that look cool in everyday normal and weird circumstances. They do also seem to care very much. But I get what April’s thinking.
  • April ruining every relationship and “isolating yourself from the love of other humans because of deep, subconscious fears that you are unable to recognize even exist.” and still realizing it. I’ve seen a lot of readers say that they didn’t like her as a person, while many also saying she’s a great character, but I have to disagree. A girl that can fuck up this much and still be aware of it. I had to consider it, but I definitely like her. The internal monologue lists are great and fit with the direct writing style really well, btw.
  • Here’s the first moment I adored: Maya’s no-bullshit reaction when April is purposely distancing herself from her. That “oh, fuck you, April” moment. Wouldn’t have thought of it so highly if I realized we wouldn’t see much of Maya for a while thought. Just wanted her to stick up for herself.
  • The mom’s point of how the dreams could’ve changed people more than they think. That would’ve been a different book if it went down that path, but it really stuck with me and my suspicion for the rest of the book.
  • April feeling burned out and going on “temporary fuel” with cool things happening until the growing hate for Peter became that long-burning fuel and motivation. It’s so dangerous, but I understand too well what she’s doing.
  • Second moment I adored: Miranda taking on the role as CEO of a tech start-up. The idea of the start-up was amazing, with everyone collaborating online on this dream and puzzle they all was given and had equal access to and could prove themselves against. But reading about Miranda, who April had described as pretty shy and smart until then, taking on such a leader role made me appreciate them both. And realize how unreliable April’s narrative is.
  • “One plus of the Dream was that if I stayed in it all night and didn’t wake up, I’d stay out of my nightmares.” OOoff, that hit me.
  • Was concerned for a bit there if Hank Green was going to write a lesbian sex scene and how much I would laugh out loud and cringe at it. The solution seemed like the most Hank thing to do and I laughed anyway.
  • All the pages with messages of what people in power can do faced with uncertainty and ignorance. Of groups moving towards the poles and becoming more radical, and how that happens.
  • When Carl was revealed to be sentient and understand April I was excited. When he didn’t want to be taken pictures of I died laughing for some reason. I just like the surrealness of things like robot hands running around, saving people like superheroes.
  • April’s description – without emotions at the most intense moments. Like she can show frustration talking about “minor” daily life issues, but when she was stabbed she’s describing her scream as awful enough that they had to cut it out of the tape and goes on to describe the mic. The switch happened regularly, really brought out different sides in her.
  • April’s perspective is really interesting because I didn’t realize just how big of a star she’d become before the president told her how it would be a joy to watch her big future.
  • Seeing your own faults and behaviour through other’s eyes suck and it’s part of why April is running from Maya I guess. Relatable.
  • “Call Me Maybe” started playing, I squealed with glee and horror. I love the pop teen songs in this. My heart. They sound so omnious too.
  • I was aware she would die, she says so early on in the book. p.16’s “That night was probably the best night’s sleep I had until after I died.” Which hints that there was a thing after she died as well, so I kept my hopes up
  • Ok, my love for Maya was strengthened by the fact that she had to go on a pilgrimage after April’s accident. And even more Andy staying. Aahh, I really liked these characters.

There’s a sequel coming being currently written, which I didn’t know going into it. The ending was very open, but I had no problem with it. If there was no sequel, I would’ve taken my immediate theory of  April being uploaded to a computer-mind of sorts. That she still lives, but outside of a body. I don’t know if there’s evidence of that yet as I haven’t read theories. Also I’m not sure that she’s completely herself towards the end. I feel there might’ve been a shift, of Carl taking more control or sharing more with her or maybe just more a natural “losing herself”, but haven’t looked too much into it yet.

I loved it: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green | Review

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Pages: 350

Genre: contemporary, sci-fi

Synopsis

The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship–like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor–April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world–everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires–and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

My thoughts

Rating out of five: five

fem

SPOILER-FREE, i’ve written an entire post filled with spoilers *here*.

I managed to have no expectations going into this book even though I’ve watched vlogbrothers for years. I really really liked this book. Whatever concerns I had of it being a bad choice to have the main characters be a young adult, was completely erased without a couple ten pages. I was drawn into this book extremely quickly and it has become one of this year’s favourites.

It’s a great mix of sci-fi elements put into our real world, with massive robots showing up all over. This book is also about the story of fame told through the eyes of one building her career on a viral hit of “discovering” these robots, which she calls Carl, and putting it on youtube. There’s also critical thoughts around society and community as everyone tries to figure out the mystery behind these robots and cooperate with varying degrees of success to unlock their riddles. It mirrors my concerns about what fame might do, how it changes one’s values and interactions when millions of people are interested in following a person. There’s a unique realness Hank brings into it, being in that world himself and surely having seen friends struggle with these questions.

The writing is very-straight forward and clear, it’s the storytelling that’s mostly the focus. April’s voice seems very true to me, a nineteen year old girl. I liked that she was bisexual in the way that it was one of many traits she had. I’ve watched a lot of youtube. But I’ve always had this line where I realize that everyone’s real people, with insecurities and talents. The internet makes so many forget that, somehow. This book still made me question the cycle of internet celebrities (fuck the name influencers, honestly) posting instagrams to gain attentions and followers and it so easily turning into a vicious cycle of preying on people’s insecurities or paying attention to destructive behavior. On social media, every crisis can gain you a bigger following, and this book has plenty of commentary on that.

I do like all the characters, Maya above everyone else because she’s badass and also sees April as a real person. Miranda the scientist was really fantastic as well. Andy, April’s partner (in crime fame) was the voice of reason sometimes, with a much needed caution. I liked April, which I wouldn’t had if I knew her in real life. She’s a great character, because she’s dimentional and you get to see her thought process changing. Like how can you not like a girl that can fuck up this much and still be self-aware about it. The internal monologue lists are great and fit with the direct writing style really well.

I just loved a lot of parts, but it’s so easy to spoil this book, which is why I for the first time split the spoilers up into a seperate post. It’s absolutely worth a read (or three honestly), I don’t think you will regret it!

Longest Books I’ve Read | Top Ten Tuesday

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl to bring bookish friends together. A new topic is posted each week.

Do I like long books?

I like long books that are that way to be able to hold a lot of information and world-building, especially in fantasy. My main problem with long books is if they don’t have a strong enough plot to justify it, like the author needs time, info-dumps or a series of essential but boring things to happen between one major moment and another. I also feel like it’s difficult with series that have long books, but books are still being released, because you have to remember the previous action and it’s not easy to just reread quickly. I’ve also seen series that could’ve been fewer, bigger books, especially in young adult, and it’s weird because you shouldn’t have to read book one and two to get the complete story like there being something essential explained in the second book that cast an entirely different light one the first book.

A third thing is that I often find myself waiting if I know the last book are going to come out soon. It’s difficult with series that have long books, and books are still being released, because you have to remember the previous action and it’s not easy to just reread quickly. Brandon Sanderson’s series is so memorable to me though that it hasn’t been a problem there.

 

 

All these books are part of one fantasy series “The Stormlight Archive” and I absolutely love it and would recommend it, Brandon Sanderson is a brilliant writer and world-builder – I want to make an entire post about why – and this is definitely one of my favourite fantasy series.

Word of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive #2) by Brandon Sanderson

1328 pages.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #3) by Brandon Sanderson

1243 pages.

The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson

1000 pages.

 

The Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller #2) by Patrick Rothfuss

1000 pages. My favourite series of all time, it’s fantasy and I love it so so much. The writing is very “flowery” at parts and people seem to love or hate it, but it’s just what I’d been missing.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling

870 pages. This might be the most boring Harry Potter book is what I thought the first time I read it, and the size doesn’t help. Love Harry Potter in general though, don’t get me wrong.

Inheritance (Eragon #4) by Christopher Paolini

850 pages. Aaah, Eragon. I’m always really curious about people’s reaction and opinions on Eragon. You see, like a lot of others I read the first two books as a kid and adored them because farmer boy finds dragon egg and goes on an adventure and there’s a fairy princess badass and it was all great. Then the forth book was released and I recognized how normal the action and plotlines were and that I shouldn’t reread the entire Eragon series if I want to keep the image of it’s awesomeness. Paolini wrote the book around fourteen years old, published it at nineteen and I wouln’t discredit it’s sucess, but I also believe it has a lot more cliches and plotholes than I picked up on as a kid.

 

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R R Martin

848 pages. I don’t often tell parents to keep their children away from certain books, but I read this book before the tv series aired – which meant I was like ten or eleven years old. It’s epic fantasy with lots of intrigues, but the whole series is so freaking long and I couldn’t take the rape scenes being an eleven year old. Now I might just watch the tv series because for once the length of the books are keeping me away.

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer

827 pages. Too long! Too slow! I really didn’t like this book, building up to a grand finale and not being able to deliver because it hasn’t the weight of other fantasy series on this list. Why would Meyer do that to herself?

 

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2) by George R R Martin

784 pages. I’m going to copy-paste what I wrote above for the first book: I don’t often tell parents to keep their children away from certain books, but I read this book before the tv series aired – which meant I was like ten or eleven years old. It’s epic fantasy with lots of intrigues, but the whole series is so freaking long and I couldn’t take the rape scenes being an eleven year old. Now I might just watch the tv series because for once the length of the books are keeping me away.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

771 pages. The secret history by Tartt is definitely a better pick if you haven’t read any of her books, but the godfinch is so particular, special and fantastic. It’s a lot of different types of plotline put into one, with heist and suburban life with neglect and a lot of other crazy shit.

 

 

Quote of the Week #15

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Ok, in my head Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is written out of the official canon and surprise it was just fanfiction and nothing more. I hated everything about it as a real book after so many years of having the harry potter series finished. It did have a couple good quotable moments though, to remind me that you can write a book as full of bad tropes and cliches and reawakening of … I’m gonna stop myself from ranting, you get that I think it’s bad.

This is a quote said by Scorpio to Albus:

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To which Albus answers: “No offense, but I’d choose someone massive and really good at magic.” Cute.

 

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg | Review

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Pages: 375

Genre: nonfiction, psychology

 

Synopsis

The official synopsis of this book should be reworked, it makes it sound three times more boring than the book actually is. So here it is in short –

There’s many areas in your life habits show themselves. It’s shown that people that changed patterns, habits, in their lives for the better also fudementally changed patterns in their brain. Marketing people study people’s habits and use psychology to sell new or more effective products and develop advertising, manipulating you. Habits at work and how to make more effective and safer employers. In general people bettering something by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives – transforming habits. Why is some able to change more easily than others? What parts do habits play in Olympic successes, social movements and CEO’s? What are unhealthy habits and what effects can they have?

“In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.”

The Audiobook

The narrator’s voice is a bit annoying, something about the ups and downs as he talks. I played it at 1.2 to 1.5x speed and it went fine. The biggest downside is that there’s a lot of passages and tips in here that you’re going to want to mark down, which is more diffcult without any visual copy.

My thoughts

“Once people learned how to believe in something, that skill started spilling over to other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change. Belief was the ingredient that made a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior.”

Rating out of five: four

fire

I’ve read some bullshit productivity book, but not many good ones, which I realized a couple chapters into this one. In short, this book gave me a different view of habits, even though I had put some research into them already. In the beginning I was a bit disheartened, as it was mostly things I knew, but then it picked up and got more in depth.

Not everything in this book is equally compelling. I thought first that it might be my stage in life – I’m a student, not a business-owner – but it seems like more reviewers agree to this. My biggest issue with the writing is that the author wants to turn everything into a habit to justify the title and theme. Why couldn’t he just reconcile with some of the things he’s discussing being different types of behaviour and spare me from automatically counting the amount of “habits” said in a chapter. It’s a part of the bigger picture in that the author needs to always be painfully clear and repeats things like he’s certain the reader is dumb.

It’s a lot of good things and lessons in here, and I’ll get to that later promise, but I also want people to be critical reading this. I’m going to look further into willpower because I know there’s been discussion and questions around of the fact given here that willpower can be used up in the span of a day. Also, I’m not sure if I agree with the views on how social movements and social habits are made and upkept, he’s giving a lot of different components needed, but it sounds off to me.

This book is meant introductory, to make people think about their habits in a different way, that they’re something under their control if they pay them enough attention and work on them. Which is very positive, so of course I recommend this book. I got a couple lessons from it, along with simpler ways to explain what I’ve been knowing already.

A couple things I liked and took from this book:

  • “Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.” 
  • His take on the marketing campaigns of big brands and supermarkets and how they dig into and use people’s habits was really interesting – that it has been funded so much it’s almost become its own science
  • Importance of organizational habits
  • The monkey experiments on how cravings are built, watching his brain respond to a task and the reward he got after. And after time when the habit had become ingrained the scans show the reward happens right after the cue (the task), but before the actual reward – he’s anticipating it, which creates a craving for the reward and keeps the habit strong.
  • The story about institutionalized unhealthy habits. In particular hospitals and other high risk jobs where they make checklists because everything needs to be done in order, and how giving nurses the authority to speak up when finding mistakes is important for cutting deaths under operation.
  • Learn from crisis and if the aftermath use them to make sure it doesn’t happen again
  • If you want to go down in weight, generally it helps to make a list of what you eat because it makes you more aware of your habits surrounding it