A review by jess_tries2read
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

dark inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

I don't know my issue with this book is resulting from a symptom of this genre as a whole. By "this genre", I mean self-help books that purport to be science based (and often have credible sources) but do not present the information in a clear way. It feels like people who publish these books want them to only be digestible, and they fear them being compared to textbooks. The consequence of this is that they are all rambling anecdotes that bury nuggets of information throughout. 

Which can be nice! There are so many interesting stories in this book. I learned about different parts of the brain, about rat studies at MIT, the invention of Febreze, about the former CEO of Alcoa, how Target started collecting data on their customers, the King's Cross fire of '87, the OG CEO of Starbucks,  organizational habits in businesses and hospitals, sleepwalking, gambling addictions, and the Civil Rights movement.

The reason I'm rating this at 3.5 is that while the above stories are interesting, the constant topic switching made the pace very slow. Plus, in my opinion all the info you need from the book comes from the first 2 chapters and the appendix. It's like an info sandwich. Maybe it's designed that way so you don't notice that the middle of the book is so rambling!

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