Born to be Mild
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'If you're looking to ease yourself back into normality after lockdown, Born to be Mild should be top of your reading list' Mail Online A funny, life-affirming memoir from the creator of social media empire Very British Problems, about how to start again when everything's gone wrong. By the time Rob Temple hit his thirties, he had become so afraid of the world that he couldn't leave the house. Depressed and anxious, he found himself drifting deeper into solitude. So Rob decided to make a plan - to embark on fifty 'mild' adventures, to be a little less Pooh Bear and a little more Bear Grylls. On a gentle journey that takes him beekeeping, bowling, and to a service station just off the M25, Rob starts to settle on a better balance - and soon discovers the joys of a life well lived. In this raw and honest memoir, Rob shares his year of gentle adventure and the lessons learnt along the way. Quiet and comforting, with a generous helping of British humour, Born to be Mild is a guide to living life unencumbered by mental illness, and a reminder to slow down and embrace your mild side.
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I really, really wanted to read this book. I got it as a gift for someone and even before that I was thinking that I'd like to read this book. Me, along with a lot of other readers, know Rob Temple from his Very British Problems account so when this book got published I thought I'd like to see where his inspiration comes from. And also thought it would be a fun, but serious, realistic book that I would enjoy.
And it is, sort of. I did enjoy the writing style, I liked reading about Rob Temple by Rob Temple, I sympathised with him too. The first few chapters were great, the exact type of funny I was expecting. And then it lost me. My biggest, and perhaps only, issue with the book is that it doesn't seem to have a flow. There are random happenings (while not really happening much) one after the other, with nothing to tie them apart from the narrator.
I also wanted to mention about the various characters introduced, which are actual people, and that made me think the issue might be with me too. I think I might be a bad biographies reader. I did read biographies that were very interesting and that I liked a lot, but I might treat them more like fiction in the sense that I expect fiction levels of action and intrigue. That doesn't really happen in biographies, does it?
With this book, I really tried to read it, manged to read about half of it, but it just isn't for me, it didn't keep my interest, I got bored while trying to read it.
What I'm saying is, this book, like pretty much any book, is not for everyone. Give it a try anyway, though, you might love it.