Subtle art of not giving a f*ck by Mark Manson– book review

There was a book club that got inaugurated in office and many people had donated books for the “library”. Incidentally i was the first borrower and the title of the book caught my attention. As my own way of nose thumbing at many for various reasons, I took this book. It had been a long while since I had a hard copy English book and the dingy smell of organic compounds that break down over a period, caused many pleasant memories to resurface, that are relatable for those who are familiar to that smell. The very first chapter titled “Don’t try” kick started the anti-advisory mechanism inherent, and I jump dived headfirst into the book. True to its tag, the whole content and theme of the book was counter intuitive in its approach. 

I rarely read self help or books that advise how to lead life or how to be successful in your career or be a better manager etc. Same goes for those who offer coaching in stock markets or on picking good stocks that yield billions in returns or how to become business maharajah’s kind of sessions. If they are as good as advertised, the presenter either wouldn’t share the secret openly or they themselves would’ve become rich by following their own practice, rather than hawking their thoughts via YouTube ads. But having taken this book, I wanted to give it an honest read and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t that bad. That the author was a blogger was very evident from the first chapter itself as the content was very differently presented as compared to books of similar nature. Right from the title, the 4-letter profanity had been peppered all throughout the book, enough number of times to rate it R. But that in-your-face approach, helps the book in conveying its content in an informal way. The challenge with these kinds of topics is that, while the idea may be novel, beyond a point one cannot stretch them without making the content boring. The author being a blogger would’ve realized the same I guess, having chosen a topic that is the realm of psychologists. He has shared so many stories and anecdotes, some of which are already known, some with a different take as compared to general opion and many from his personal life, with lot of personal failure related incidents. Each of these anecdote kick starts a chapter and what is the message he wants to convey from that story forms the crux of the message he wants to convey. Towards the end, the book does tend to drag, and it gets into the “auto advisory” mode that typically comes with self help books, where the authors usually rely heavily on big words and complex sentences, touching upon brain cells and neurons and thought processes and responses. The connection thread of creatively addressing the content gets lost and quite naturally so as every topic cannot be presented like comic san serif font!!

I felt, the author might have been majorly influenced by Buddhism and its philosophies, for he is quite open in his admiration about those principles in his own way, multiple times in the book. Personally, there were some sections where he shared his personal experiences, resonated with me and having been on the same path that he went through only to realize its futility at a later point was another over lapping aspect. Like most of the books of its nature, it does talks about the problems and suggest getting away from them in its own way but doesn’t mention how to identify the problem. If that been the case, this book would’ve become a syllabus material in a psychology course rather than non-fiction category. And no author in the world has a solution for every problem faced by their readers, even though their books may advertise so. It felt nice to finish the book, after having read a hard copy one in a long time. The best part being, junior, having seen me reading the book, took his Suppandi digest and was reading(imitating me) right next to me. He does read books on his own but tends to watch YouTube videos more than his reading hours. I felt since I often read from my mobile directly and it might’ve given him a wrong impression on mobile usage. And having been smitten back into hard book reading, intending to continue the same in near future.