comeundun's reviews
366 reviews

This book has a lot of good information, but I would definitely recommend against listening to the audiobook. Much of this book is listing things which gets quite tedious to listen to. 
Something to note is that there seems to be quite a focus on weight. He repeatedly says to weigh yourself every day to keep yourself on track with weight-loss or maintenance/keep yourself honest. This is just unhealthy, and can lead to disordered eating. He also uses BMI as a health indicator which seems to have been largely discredited even when this book was written a few years ago. 
If eating or weight-loss are sensitive topics for you, this might not be the best book for you to pick up.
*There are religious aspects to this book (Christianity).

I did not enjoy this book. As someone who works with children, I can confidently say that 6-year-old children do not speak/think this way. One example that stood out to me is:
"Océane is a little girl, but she is a little girl who can hunt trolls and, more importantly, who is not scared, who is so strong, confident, and so pretty too, has been so pretty for so long. Why, for so long, has she not understood that I, Nathan, like her and want to hold her in my arms and kiss her and most of all, yes, most of all, I want her to want nothing more than to be near me, for me to be near her, for her to talk to me and want me to talk to her too." 
Yeah, totally sounds like a small child. 
Another issue was that it would jump between perspectives with no indication that it was someone else until it mentioned someone they were with or were thinking about, which could arguably be a stylistic choice, but it didn't work because the characters did not in any way have distinct voices, which is especially problematic when IT'S FLIP FLOPPING BETWEEN ADULTS AND SMALL CHILDREN.
If this wasn't the first book of the year for me, I would have DNFd it. Looking back, I'm not sure what's worse - DNF or 1⭐. Either way, I'm starting the year on a bad note. I guess I can only go up from here. 

And with that, I think I'm done with Murakami. This was rather boring - possibly because Japanese translations are often a bit dry, but also because even when the main character faces a problem, there are no stakes. Things just magically resolve themselves within a single page. 
There were also a couple things that just made me question why I was continuing to read this at all. For example, "Like a blind dolphin, the night of the new moon silently drew near." What does that even mean, like a blind dolphin?
Another was: "At the same time my anxiety had turned into an anxiety quite lacking in anxiousness. And any anxiety that is not especially anxious is, in the end, an anxiety hardly worth mentioning." Okay great, so why did you make me read that? 
Could have used an editor for sure. 🙄

Actually felt like I was going to throw up at multiple points during reading, I was so filled with dread. A+

I was really impressed by the first few stories, but the latter half really changed tone and I didn't enjoy it as much.

Wow. Not what I was expecting.
This is a truly unlikeable character. If you're looking for a book with an unhinged main female character, this is it. The ending certainly took a turn. 👀

Another one where I don't seem to love it as much as other people do. I did choose to give it 4 stars, however, because I did find myself thinking about it semi-regularly while I wasn't reading it. 
I have heard others talk about how this book made them feel sympathy for the man facing execution (sometimes making them feel uncomfortable for feeling that way), but I didn't feel anything more than I usually do when I think about the death penalty.
The writing, both from his point of view and from others', made him unlikable enough that I certainly wasn't feeling torn up about his fate.
Something I did find interesting was the discussion about single decisions taking us down a certain path, the endless possibilities our lives could take, and that he COULD be good in some other dimension - we could be completely different in the millions of other possible dimensions. I didn't think it was enough to make me feel especially sorrowful about his situation, though.

A lot of what she was talking about in the beginning, I agree with. As someone who went to a lot of therapy, I can say that therapy in and of itself can make the issue worse. I have experienced it first hand. I loved her exploration of iatrogenesis and the suggestion that if a therapist isn't looking at when they can get you OUT of their office for good, they probably don't have your best interests at heart; therapy without an end goal is not good therapy. 
I also appreciate her ideas around building resilience in children rather than protecting them from common experiences in life. I agree that advocates for gentle parenting, and the folks that show it online are oftentimes mistaking it for permissive parenting, and that, frankly, helps nobody.
I do also appreciate her stance on: just because a child has a diagnosis doesn't mean they should be medicated. With this, she talks about ADHD, depression, and anxiety. I feel I can speak on this as someone who has been diagnosed with all of the above. I believe I could have been helped with my ADHD quite well if I was just taught coping mechanisms early on - I would have gotten to the same place I am now, but without so much of the struggle. For depression and anxiety, I do believe that sometimes these are a part of the adolescent experience and sometimes they just need some support to get through. She did touch briefly on how if it's interfering with your ability to function, medication may be the right choice, but it was so brief, I think it could easily be missed. 

Once she gets to the education section, I found that some of the examples seem over the top - many of which I've heard from right-wing folks that have always made me question, "in what world is that actually happening?" Who is asking children to share their traumatic experiences before they start a lesson in class or before lunch? What teacher is holding group therapy sessions with children? Who is stalking children just waiting for them to share their deepest, darkest secrets? Who is bringing up sexuality and LGBTQ issues one on one with a child if the child didn't bring it up themselves? Like am I crazy in thinking that generally speaking (as a teacher), conversations with the children one on one (not academic) are generally driven by what the child wants to talk about?
She also spoke a lot about how mental health screenings are hurting children and that we shouldn't be doing them at all because asking "have you ever thought about hurting yourself" is akin to saying "here's a razor. You should slide it across your wrist," and asking "have you ever considered suicide?" Is the same as saying "you should definitely try taking a bunch of pills. Let's just see how it goes." And for some reason is upset about the suicide hotline being readily visible throughout schools. When I had generally good mental health (lol feels so long ago), I barely paid attention to that stuff, and I'm sure many other people are the same way. One of her main points was that children are so much more resilient than we give them credit for, but then in the next breath she's saying they can't even handle a mental health questionnaire without their mental health completely disintegrating. Come on, seriously?
And then if your child IS experiencing poor mental health, you are the one who decides if they are in crisis. If they are engaging in "mild" self harm (whatever that means), sometimes you should just "ignore it". Yes, ignoring things always makes them go away. No, we shouldn't be having conversations with our kids about it because that could just be giving them the attention they want and will obviously lead to it continuing. 

There are moments where she's talking about how permissive parenting is making teachers' jobs so much more difficult than they need to be, but in the next breath is basically pitting teachers and parents against each other - she's unhappy that schools are saying they are partners in raising children, "thanks for the demotion". A lot of teachers see kids more than their own parents do, but sure, they have no part in helping to raise them. Not at all. 
I agree that parents /should be/ the main factor in a child's upbringing, but there are a lot of scenarios where they aren't getting all that they need at home. It's okay to accept that it takes a village to raise a child. It's okay to work together. 

My last complaint is about her very apparent negative view of people who choose not to have children of their own, and especially people who are estranged from their parents/family. You don't know all of the details of everyone's life nor the events that happened to shape their wants and needs, so we don't need your sweeping generalizations.