You're Not That Great

As a book about self-improvement, this should really be reviewed on two axes: the writing/entertainment value and the advice.

The writing was a good time, at least as much as a book telling you you suck can be. Very readable, and in contrast to other reviewers, it's not especially long, weighing in at 192 pages. It did take me 3 weeks or so to finish, but that's really more about my reading habits getting worse as I get older and have less time.

The advice I have mixed feelings about. Others have said that they agree that “positivity culture,” for lack of a better term, is out of control. I think that's probably true. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut. The prescription, however, I think is a bit extreme.

I actually find myself more in agreement with Gale than I thought I would. I've had some major self-improvements driven by negative emotions, and until then I had bought pretty heavily into the idea that I was fine, everyone should be who they are, and so on. I don't think negative self-perception is necessarily a bad thing, and you need to acknowledge the parts of you you don't like before you can fix them. But to fully embrace Gale's approach, you will basically need to be miserable all the time as you constantly fault-find within yourself. That's no way to live.

I think negativity is a good start, even a good middle, to self-improvement, but I think at some point you have to move past it to be happy. (Or maybe not. I have gained a bunch of weight back lately.) I don't think there is a lot of point to doing all this work to improve yourself if you never allow yourself to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Gale seems to address this a bit in the very final chapter, with a couple of quotes from people he interviewed for the book, but it is given very short shrift compared to the rest of the book.