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A review by veronicachp
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
2.5 stars: Not enjoyable, but important.
Reading this book was a unique experience, in that I really deeply agree with most of the author's points, but I hated the way she said them. To start with, this book is not really a “how to” anything as advertised, but actually a collection of essays about the author's personal feelings about social media, nature, environmentalism, humanity, moral responsibility, etc, etc. That's fine and dandy, but was not what I thought I was getting myself into.
The bigger problem though, is the tone the entire book is written in. This book is a SLOG. It took me like...3 months to get through it and I also had to check out the audio book because my eyes kept glazing over while trying to read the actual book. I considered DNFing it several times but the author breadcrumbs in really good, interesting points juuuuust often enough that I kept pushing through, despite the slog. I thought long and hard about how to describe this book and the phrase I keep coming back to is “Academic to the point of indecipherable.” It is so so so dense that it buries almost all of the actually important, really good things it has to say in a wall of noise. The other, less glaring, tonal issue is that it's kinda smug. You get the impression that the author is convinced she has unlocked the ultimate secret to living deeply or whatever and she is judging you if you don't follow suit, and also for still having a facebook account. This is probably unintentional, but it was a factor while I was reading it nonetheless.
In short, my feelings about this one are complicated. As I said, I really agree with her points and overall message, and several quotes and moments from it will stick with me; It's just that the process of actually reading the book and cherry picking those important moments out was so grueling that it made it not an enjoyable read. Maybe, as the author says, I am so conditioned to social media and instant gratification that I just don't have the ability to really hear what she's saying and sit through the slog to find the caramel center or whatever, but I actually think it's just not very accessibly written.
Reading this book was a unique experience, in that I really deeply agree with most of the author's points, but I hated the way she said them. To start with, this book is not really a “how to” anything as advertised, but actually a collection of essays about the author's personal feelings about social media, nature, environmentalism, humanity, moral responsibility, etc, etc. That's fine and dandy, but was not what I thought I was getting myself into.
The bigger problem though, is the tone the entire book is written in. This book is a SLOG. It took me like...3 months to get through it and I also had to check out the audio book because my eyes kept glazing over while trying to read the actual book. I considered DNFing it several times but the author breadcrumbs in really good, interesting points juuuuust often enough that I kept pushing through, despite the slog. I thought long and hard about how to describe this book and the phrase I keep coming back to is “Academic to the point of indecipherable.” It is so so so dense that it buries almost all of the actually important, really good things it has to say in a wall of noise. The other, less glaring, tonal issue is that it's kinda smug. You get the impression that the author is convinced she has unlocked the ultimate secret to living deeply or whatever and she is judging you if you don't follow suit, and also for still having a facebook account. This is probably unintentional, but it was a factor while I was reading it nonetheless.
In short, my feelings about this one are complicated. As I said, I really agree with her points and overall message, and several quotes and moments from it will stick with me; It's just that the process of actually reading the book and cherry picking those important moments out was so grueling that it made it not an enjoyable read. Maybe, as the author says, I am so conditioned to social media and instant gratification that I just don't have the ability to really hear what she's saying and sit through the slog to find the caramel center or whatever, but I actually think it's just not very accessibly written.