Review: Our Missing Hearts (by Celeste Ng)

My Rating:  4.5 stars

In her Author's note at the end of this book, Celeste Ng writes, "Bird and Margaret's world isn't exactly our world, but it isn't not ours, either."  This quote encapsulates my first reaction as soon as I turned the very last page of the story:  this book scared the hell out of me.  No, this was by no means a horror novel in the sense that there were no evil monsters lurking in the shadows or gory murders taking place every couple pages or anything like that. What made this story so scary was how recognizable the dystopian world that Ng created was, especially when looking at the past history of our country, the current realities of what our society has become, and where we are headed in the future.  Even scarier still  for me was reading this book as a  Chinese woman with a background that shares some similarities with Margaret's, and also having myself experienced first-hand many of the prejudices and micro-aggressions that she did at various stages of her life, it heightens the notion that this dystopian society will indeed (unfortunately) become our grim reality in the years to come.  

As I was gathering my thoughts to write this review, I decided to deliberately keep it short and vague, mostly because I feel the power of this story is in the experience of reading it. This book was definitely a departure from Ng's previous works and to be honest, I did hesitate to pick it up at first knowing that it would be science fiction (a genre that isn't usually my cup of tea).  But as soon as I read the first page, I was drawn in by Ng's beautiful and absorbing writing as well as her masterful storytelling.  Now after having read this book, I feel that it would be more appropriate to put this in the "genre mashup" category rather than solely science fiction, as there were aspects of historical, literary, and contemporary fiction in here —  I think this is important to point out in case there are other readers like me who might be put off reading genres that they don't usually prefer.  I actually ended up finishing this book in essentially one sitting, as I got so absorbed in the story that was unfolding, I had to keep going in order to see how things would turn out.

Lastly, a word about the rating, which I agonized over for quite some time.  While there was so much about this book that deserved 5 stars, I ended up going the 4.5 stars route because I felt that the story overall didn't quite have the level of emotional resonance as Ng's previous books, especially as it relates to the characters  — which I guess wasn't too surprising given that some of the focus had to be shifted to the "world-building" aspects of the dystopian society that was both a reflection and not a reflection of our current society.  As I mentioned earlier in my review, I definitely felt fear and anger at everything that was happening throughout the story, but I didn't really feel the personal, emotional connection to the characters that I was expecting.  Having said that, I still found this to be brilliantly written and a worthy (I would even say necessary read) — though of course, given the subject matter, it won't be an easy read by any means.  

Review: The Checklist Manifesto (by Atul Gawande)

My Rating:  4 stars

Looking through my reading log the past couple weeks, I realize that I've been a bit behind with my reading the past couple weeks. This was due mainly to a few projects that I had to be involved with at work, which ended up requiring a bigger time commitment than I originally anticipated.  Luckily, those projects will be completed by next month, so I will be able to get back on track very soon!

With that said, one of the books I was able to squeeze in during this time period was Atul Gawande's nonfiction bestseller The Checklist Manifesto.  Though this book came out 12 years ago, I actually only heard about it recently, when it was discussed on one of the book podcasts I listen to.  I will admit that, going into this book, I was expecting it to be a "how-to" manual of sorts on designing checklists, so I was anticipating a long and arduous read (as most nonfiction books in the "self-help" category usually are for me).  To my surprise though, this book proved to be the complete opposite of what I thought it would be.  The "how-to" piece was actually less than 10% of the book; majority of the book was filled with fascinating anecdotes about several industries (primarily medicine and aviation) and how checklists contributed to various successes in those industries.  It was obvious to me that Gawande is a passionate advocate for the use of checklists and while most of his focus here is of course on his profession (he is a renowned surgeon) and how checklists helped him in his line of work, I still found quite a bit of relevance in what he wrote.  I think that anyone who works in a highly complex field (or has tasks that require a fair amount of complexity) can definitely benefit from incorporating checklists in the way that Gawande describes.  In fact, before I even got to the end of the book, I already started thinking about possible ways to incorporate checklists to a few of my own tasks at work.

One of the things I appreciate most about this book is how well-written it is.  Medicine and aviation are two fields that I would normally find boring to read about in such painstaking detail, but Gawande managed to make the subject matter interesting to the point that I wanted to keep turning the pages to see how things would turn out.  I actually ended up finishing this book in one sitting, which usually never happens with me when reading nonfiction books!  I think what also helped is that Gawande writes in an honest, down-to-earth manner with a good amount of self-deprecating humor sprinkled throughout, which is very different from the "preachiness" of many "self-help" books out there (especially the business-related ones, most of which tend to have a condescending tone that usually turns me off the getgo).

While definitely not perfect by any means, there is a lot of good insight here — to me, this is a useful book that is well worth a read-through regardless of what profession you are in.  Though with that said, Gawande does describe some of the medical situations he encounters in explicit detail, so just a word of warning, in case stuff like that makes you queasy (I personally read through these scenes quickly and in a few cases, skipped some of the descriptions altogether).  Overall, this book was both helpful and entertaining (plus, at about 200 pages, it's relatively short), so definitely a recommended read!  

Review: The Hero of This Book (by Elizabeth McCracken)

My Rating: 3 stars

I really really wanted to love this book like so many of my fellow readers did, but unfortunately, this one didn't quite work out for me.  Don't get me wrong — Elizabeth McCracken is a great writer and her ability to use humor in the cleverest of ways is one of the things that I appreciate most about her works (this book was no exception).  I also found the premise of the story very touching, with McCracken's indirect tribute to her mother through the narrator's recounting of her her memories (though of course, as McCracken makes clear, this is not a memoir, and the narrator, though also a writer who shares other similar details with herself, is technically not her).  Having said that, the story overall was a bit hard to follow, as there wasn't much of a plot — it was mostly the narrator's thoughts and memories that would jump back and forth from past to present.  It actually got to the point where I would be halfway through the book and have no idea what I just read.  There were also moments where I had to stop reading in order to attend to a life issue, but then afterwards, I didn't really feel like picking the book back up again (though of course, I eventually did pick it up and finish, since I have a problem with DNFing books once I start them).

While overall I was glad to have read this — and there were certainly aspects I related to and appreciated, such as the narrator's complicated relationship with her mother and also trying to reconcile that with her sensibilities as a writer (hence the struggle of whether to actually write about her mother or not) — the back and forth was a bit too much for me.  At times, the story felt like it was all over the place and that ended up detracting from the emotional aspect a bit. 

Even though this one fell a little short for me, I'm still interested in reading McCracken's other works at some point and having a different reading experience.

Received ARC from Ecco Press via NetGalley.

Review: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (by Oliver Burkeman)

My Rating:  3.5 stars



I'm picky when it comes to reading "self-help" books, mainly because I feel that, implicit in most books in this category, the main goal is to tell the reader what to do (or not do to) with their lives.  Of course, in and of itself, there's nothing wrong with this, but for me, it's all about the tone and approach — I hate the feeling of something being crammed down my throat (I don't care if it's something good or bad for me), which is why I can't stand books that are "overly preachy" in any way.  This is also why I'm extremely wary when it comes to reading nonfiction books (that aren't biographies or memoirs), as the tone and approach can very easily derail an otherwise good reading experience for me. 

I say all this because my initial expectation going into Oliver Burkeman's time management book Four Thousand Weeks was that it would presumably fall into the above-mentioned category, mainly because most books on time management that I've read over the years are written from a business angle and usually promote the idea of being "as productive and efficient" as possible at work.  To my great surprise however, this book actually went the completely opposite direction — instead of encouraging people to "make more time in order to get more done" (the message I hear over and over again in most business books), this book embraces the concept that time is finite, humans are only on this earth for a certain amount of time (Burkeman uses "four thousand weeks" as a gauge) and because of that, we should face the fact that it's realistically impossible to get everything we want to do done.  Expanding on this idea, instead of obsessing over how much time it will take to do something or worrying about not having enough time to accomplish what you set out to accomplish (whether it's a small task at work or a life goal), Burkeman advocates making the conscious (and often difficult) decision to do what matters most in that moment and accept the consequences of that decision, whether good or bad.  

Many of the examples Burkeman gave were relevant to what I often struggle with, which I definitely appreciated.  One personal example that especially resonated with me:  I've always referred to myself as an "aspiring author" because my dream is to write and publish a book at some point, but given my chaotic and busy work + family life, I've been putting off starting that book I've always wanted to write until a "more opportune time" when work is less busy and family life is less chaotic (which to me, pretty much means when I reach retirement at work and my family is self-sufficient enough where I don't have to worry about making sure their lives are comfortable). This book posits the idea that the "most opportune time" might never come, which is something I honestly never thought about until now.  It makes sense though — for me, work will always be busy (especially in my field of work — which I will loosely define as "trade and commerce"…unless the world suddenly comes to a halt and stops functioning, which we of course know will never happen, I will always have an infinite amount of things to do at work) and when it comes to family life, the reality is that it will always be filled with one crisis or another (since that's how life works) — so why not accept the fact that work and life will occur the way it does and instead of trying to "control" time (by assuming that work and family will fall into place to the point that the "most opportune time" will come for me to start my book project), just make the decision to start writing a little bit each day and go from there.  

Much of Burkeman's advice in this book actually runs counter to traditional time management advice (which focuses a lot on productivity and efficiency) that we often find in most business books.  Not only that, I like how his book doesn't just focus on work — much of what he writes about can be applied to personal life as well, which also makes it stand out from said books.  

With that said, structure-wise, there were actually quite a few flaws in this book, which is what prevented me from being able to rate it higher than I did, despite finding some of the concepts personally resonant.  At times, I felt like Burkeman was all over the place with his ideas, and there were moments where he seemed to contradict himself — or perhaps these moments were just him, as a former "productivity guru", trying to work out his own changed philosophy toward time management on the page.  And I also agree with what a few other reviewers pointed out — that there is a fair amount of repetition in the book, which made the reading a bit tedious at times.

Overall, despite not being perfect by any means, this was a good book with quite a bit of food for thought as well as many examples that I felt could be applicable to my life.  While I didn't necessarily agree with every concept presented in this book — and admittedly, there were moments where I felt that Burkeman got a bit too philosophical, almost to the point of losing me in the process — I did appreciate the different angle to time management that he explored.  

This book will mean different things to different people, which is reflected in the wide spectrum of ratings for it on Goodreads (I saw one star to five stars and everything in between).  I decided to go the "happy medium" route, which I feel is most appropriate for my experience with this book. If you choose to read this one,  know that your experience may be vastly different from mine and that's perfectly okay — if you are able to glean at least one resonant concept from this book like I did, then it will be time well-spent reading it.