Sarah Schumacher

I want to read INTELLIGENT perspectives that differ from my own, and this is not that. I was curious about the title and had never heard of the author… I made it 3 chapters before I said “that’s enough nonsense.”

Imagine if someone dared to ask questions or suggest a Karen’s kid might benefit from therapy. Now create an atom bomb of that ignorance, lack of self-awareness and defensiveness. And that’s just the preface.

She appears to extrapolate her own (lackluster) experience with a single therapist into a massive pile of bad faith arguments and calls it a book. Again, I only made it to chapter 3, so take my review with a grain of salt.

This book is a case study in how to cherry pick anecdotes. The example that sticks in my mind is when she mentions a principal who doesn’t want to take kid’s phones away because it “keeps them calm.” WTF. Where’s the rest of his statement? Point me to any single school administration official who LIKES kids to have phones in class. She wants to cherry pick? Ok, well I just read about a school district who completely banned phones. And my kid’s school has had to send emails saying kids should never have phones in class. So there’s two, lady, your move. This is the level of intelligent discussion you might have with this book. So none.

Assuming she ever got around to making any valid points I wouldn’t have been able to take her seriously because of the rest of it. Even with the small amount I read she still managed to rant about lockdowns, claims of systemic racism, and climate ("But is climate anxiety—dare I ask—rational?")

Don’t waste your time with this rage bait. I should note this is coming from someone who does not agree with our helicopter parenting, intense child optimization culture. There are things I probably do agree with her on (emotions change, don’t make happiness the goal, for example), but even then I would expect actual valid sources for those conclusions. This book was written purely to massage the ego of a certain type of person, nothing more.

Fascinating journey of a journalist trying to find the smoking gun of the crypto stablecoin Tether. He reveals a lot about the industry as a whole: crypto bros, NFTs, lost savings, scammers, and the real-world harms caused by crypto (evidently Tether is the money dispenser of choice for scammers in Cambodia who entrap then enslave people… if you get one of those “accidental” texts turned crypto-scam, it could be someone being held against their will). You also learn about a crypto-earning phone game that went viral in the Philippines and made money for people… for a while, many of whom lost their savings when it crashed.

Well-written, with quite a few satisfying turns of phrase. There’s a nagging feeling the narrative wasn’t tight enough, and I think that’s because he began with a friend bragging about money he’d made, while the author’s hunch was SCAM ALERT… and yet people are making money. He set it out to prove the hunch right. The collapse might have done that for him, except that it had little impact on the primary target of his investigation: Tether. So there isn’t any closure about what they’re actually doing. Time will tell, but I became invested in his search for transparency.

A good read for anyone curious/uninformed about crypto brotopia as it touches on so many different aspects of it.

I've been bullet journaling for 4 years, but I figured I should at least speed read this book. I ended up skimming most of it.

I didn't expect all the self-help motivational stuff. I read a lot of that, but it was irritating here because I've already heard every anecdote, study and scientist's name like 6 times. It felt like productivity 101. That being said, I don't think I'm the target market for this book. I neither want nor need hand-holding. I stumbled onto bullet journaling, just started doing it and made it up as I went along (which is kind of the point). I'm very utilitarian about it and I already have my own systems for goal setting and such.

The type of person I see inclined to pick this book up: (30+ woman with kids, busy and overwhelmed, not great at scheduling, spends time on Pinterest, likes the idea of journaling, does not read business or pop science books for fun). So the short, here's-a-helpful-productivity-fact chapters are probably great. But if you're more my type, just read Part 2 - The System and Part 4 - The Art. The rest is just fluff.

Overall I don't think I learned anything particularly groundbreaking about the method, but my goal was just to get a better grasp of the official system. Ironically, I've never much used the bullet system of bullet journaling (rapid logging), so I wanted to see more of that in practice.

I highly recommend bullet journaling in general, but if you're a self starter you can pick up the method from bulletjournal.com. If you prefer more elaborate explanation and like the idea of motivational goal setting exercises, check out the book, which does a good job of showing how the system works together as a whole.

Don't read this when you have anything to do or anywhere to be. It's gripping.

After finishing this, I was struck by several things:

1) how important it is that realization, and consequently change, happens internally. There are several characters in the book that see her situation for what it is, and Tara can't comprehend what they're saying. It's like someone is asleep - they have to choose to wake up. You cannot wake them up from the outside.

2) her inability to accept help. Mercifully, several characters see what's happening and try so hard to help her. She refuses their help. It does make a difference that they reached out, eventually, so small things do matter. One astute, persistent professor in particular.

3) lack of boundaries. After she's realized the toxicity of her family, she still allows her visiting parents to stay in her dorm room. For a WEEK. I don't care how good of a relationship you have with your even normal parents, that won't fly. You can hear the dread, but she still can't say no. The strength of a child's desire (even, especially an adult child) to have a close, functional relationship with their parents (and siblings) is so strong you get the feeling that if there were any attempt by them to reach out she would reciprocate. And this is the kind of relationship that cannot exist in a nontoxic form.

Getting an education was the tipping point, but this book is about much more than that - her journey of learning to stop rationalizing, see the painful truth for what it is, and think for herself. This is worth the read for her incredibly clear, honest writing of self-discovery, and it's an excellent look into human nature. I hope she continues to seek therapy, learn to stick up for herself, and has the support she needs to navigate whatever comes next.