Review: You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think I read one self-help book a year. It's nice to both, A. get some tips and pep talk, and B. roll my eyes at the usual embedded nonsense. This book, which is largely indistinguishable from any other "tough big sister" style of self-help book, has a few half-smile moments and a neat title, but is just as quacky as the rest. It does have some fatal flaws..

A. A lot of quasi-spirituality. Harmonize with the universe by changing your frequency. Silly, but translatable, so forgivable.

B. Ths author thinks depression is a buckshot excuse (a story) we tell ourselves that we get off on... Depression. "When you feel awful you don't have to work hard (among other things). It gets you attention. Gives you something to talk about, and allows you not to try too hard. Gives us permission to drink beer in the morning." "Just stop being childish, let the story go and move on with your life." What the holy hell?

Let's use her own Forgiveness model to forgive her apparently ignorance about depression: a thing people don't talk about until it's almost too late. A thing people bust their tailfeathers to hide, so they seem normal. Let's hope she gets a clue, and let the ignorance go.

So far, I want to use her own advice and just Let this book, with nothing that hasn't been said before, Go.

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