How Do We Know We're Doing It Right

I wanted to love this book, but I just didn't. I know it's essays and not a memoir, but you would expect some personal history. Instead, there's an assumed familiarity that has an effect of contrived relatability and inappropriate intimacy - why should you be telling me about your episiotomy when I don't even know where you're from? How you met your husband? What your career path looked like?

Really, I don't need to know what Freud has to say on burnout or consumerism or empathy or intentional political ignorance or whatever other topic is being tackled. What I want, and what I bought this book for, is the Pandora Sykes take on these things, or at least a bit more insight into her experiences with them. Instead, she insists on maintaining journalistic objectivity, which may work for her other writing but falls short in this format. Without the thread of Sykes's life to link them together, the essays feel like a randomly compiled series of articles rather than a cohesive narrative of any kind, despite the fact that they were all clearly written specifically for this book.

Insightful? Sure. Sort of. But compelling? Not for me, I'm sorry to say.