The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson

Note: This book review has minor spoilers (specially towards the end)!

I’m years late to reading this book. I bought it for my sister around 2019, because I thought the title was a bit edgy and maybe had a few glimmers of insight and protocols to deal with life, social situations, stress, anxiety, and the seemingly overwhelming need to perform and put on a face that has become ever-increasing in the era of TikTok.

Yet when it was proposed in our Book Club, even though I knew it was loosely a type of humoristic approach at a self-help book, I kind of thought it would be good to give it a go (mostly because we had just finished a longer and more complicated book, so it feels nice to dive into something that reads easily in between lengthier reads).

The core idea of the book is to set expectations to zero, the baseline is nothing, then you can only go up. If things were to get worse, that is the new baseline. Choose what things to be passionate or care for with frugality: If you care for everything and want to be everything and measure everything in terms of success then everything will cease to be worthwhile.

I think the most important chapters were 1, 6 and 9.

The last chapter was the one that felt the realest and most honest; but i feel like the whole going to a cliff in south africa was a weird way to confront the idea of death, I feel like you can be at peace with the fact we are going to die without having to look at the bottom of a cliff.

Overall I feel it was written in a state of flow, the sentences are fluid, and whilst targetting a specific audience with a bit of an overuse of expletives, it still feels honest and straight-forward. I feel there are a few nuggets of knowledge and it was entertaining to read.

The downside? I feel like it could have been a 20-30 minute video. For this I think I’ll give it a 3.5 out of 5.