There are two reasons you tend to give a fuck about what other people think: one, because you don’t want to be a bad person, and two, because you don’t want to look like a bad person
Rating: 2/5
Trigger Warnings: swearing? Some suicide/self-harm jokes
Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t read the book, this review will contain spoilers so it’s up to you if you continue…
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck is exactly what it sounds like on the tin. It’s a self-help book about how sometimes not caring is a much easier solution for you.
I can’t argue with this, to tell the truth, it was exactly the kind of advice I needed, hence why my friends bought it for me for my birthday. It was a (very) belated present but an incredibly well thought through one so all lateness is forgiven! I definitely care too much about a whole range of things: other people’s feelings, work, uni, parents, judgement, instagram, embarrassing myself in front of people, money, health, the future, what I’m going to do, hurting people, being clingy…it’s a long list, okay? So the idea really spoke to me and if someone can teach how to give less of a fuck? Sign me up.
Like I say, it’s very good advice. I just don’t think I need 190 pages repeating the same thing over and over again. This book was so repetitive. So, so repetitive. I’m not sure whether that’s just the nature of self-help books because I’ve felt this is a common theme in the self-help books I’ve read, or maybe it’s just that Sarah Knight didn’t have much to add to her ‘NotSorry Method’ beyond not being sorry about not caring. It is literally summed up in a sentence: don’t waste energy on things that don’t make you happy. I’d probably allow you a couple of chapters about how to do this, how to feel less bad about not caring, and about how to talk to people about not caring. A whole book though? No thanks.
On top of this is the repetition of the exact same sentence. Maybe I object because I read this book in a roughly 3 day block, but oh my god I have enough memory capacity to know that Step 1 is ‘deciding not to give a fuck’ and Step 2 is ‘not giving a fuck’. This got repeated so often I couldn’t write a review without mentioning my frustration. The writing of this book simply was not of a high standard.
Speaking of… what an obnoxious persona. And I am truly sorry if that is genuinely Sarah Knight’s personality, I don’t want to personally insult her, but I just felt like it was super irritating. Stop saying fuck, for one. It really loses its impact when you use it in every other sentence. On the other hand, the impact of a suicide joke is never diminished. Because it is never funny. I don’t care how much you dislike gallery openings, a self-harm/suicide joke is not the right way to express that. That was just insensitive, no matter how edgy you’re trying to present yourself as, it’s just uncalled for.
Now I’ve written this I realise how crazily negative the review came as I went through my points but I guess that reflects my reading experience. It started off pretty well, I liked the concept. I will emphasise that it is good advise: it prioritises the self and attempts to provide a guilt-free way to get more satisfaction from your life. My problem lies in the writing, not the sentiment.
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