Book Review: The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson

Mark Mansion is a famous blogger who writes about life related topics on his blog: markmanson.net. This book is a summarized version of his long-running blog. The self-help book is all about life and some of its allied personal development: how and where and when. It is given right under the title: ‘A counterintuitive approach to living a good life’.

The book has been a great hit in many countries, thanks to its raving reviews, and people are picking it up because of the reviews. You may start reading it with lot of expectations. It will fulfill in the first few pages, or say up to some chapters. For instance, the pages where the author talks about Charles Bukowski, about his wayward life, and then an unexpected positive diversion in his life. It may give you some hope in getting to know that a publisher is interested in his writing at the age of fifty-two.

The aspects that may attract readers are the inscriptions on German-American poet, Charles Bukowski’s tombstone ‘Don’t Try’. That could activate your curiosity. But people are tired of reading all those positive outlook books. After one point of time, they seem fake, a semblance of something else. And there is this book that says ‘Don’t Try Too Hard’. Be it as you are – be happy with your pace. After some time, readers may begin feeling that the book is stalling or losing way from its original track. The writer will then begin lecturing about morals, values, entitlement, etcetera… etcetera.

Then, comes the roundabout conversation, the author reinforces on accepting one’s own fears and flaws and then moving ahead in life with them. At some point, he himself contradicts his facts. The writer has excessively used the word f*ck…may be to sound cool and to be in tandem with this modern slang which used worldwide. The balance in the book is lost, there seem to be many voices in the book. Probably, he is expecting his readers that stuff that is given there is for them. You may gain a lot of positivity after reading this book, but does it come out of its banality. It is a queer notion to express that after some time, self-help books sound dead flat and ordinary in the queue.

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