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A review by shannenlc
The Book of Moods: How I Turned My Worst Emotions Into My Best Life by Lauren Martin
I've been on a non-fiction/self-help kick lately. Admittedly, I often have a lot of gripes with these types of books so I have a tendency to pick out the bits that are valuable to me rather than reading it from cover to cover.
So I should start this with a disclaimer and say that skipped a lot of sections of this book, and specifically all of the personal stories and anecdotes from the author. Instead, I focused more on the practical advice and tips for understanding and dealing with moods and the research. There were some genuinely informative tidbits in here that I will take forward, particularly the section about distorted thoughts.
However, I have a lot of issues with the book and wouldn't recommend it. It doesn't properly reference any of the citations, is under-researched, reeks of privilege and entitlement, perpetuates gender stereotypes and is built upon biological essentialism. Let's take the time to look at each of these more in-depth.
First, whether a book is written for academic purposes or not is irrelevant, when citing other material, there should always be a clear reference list for readers to refer to. Without this, there is no merit to anything that is shared in this book, no matter how valuable I might've found it. Hand-in-hand with this, there were a lot of generalisations that were made that were clearly the perspective of the author but sometimes presented as more of an objective fact. The general lack of clear citations makes it difficult to separate the author's personal biases, commentaries and experiences from the empirical evidence. Again, the importance of referencing correctly and clearly cannot be understated.
The other issues I had with the book stem from the author herself and her perspectives. I know nothing about her other than what's in this book. Whilst I appreciate her courage and bravery in being vulnerable, she doesn't come across well in this book. Her privilege and entitlement seeps off the page. This is a book she wrote about herself and to herself. I related to almost nothing that she referenced and the assumption that every woman can relate was infuriating.
My biggest issue with this book is the gross over simplification and generalisations of what it is to be a woman, and the thread of biological essentialism that runs throughout. The author repeatedly hammers home the same point - "women are moody because of our biology, it's not our fault." I can't even be bothered to go into all of the reasons why this is a flawed perspective but suffice to say that biology is one aspect that shapes us and if you dig a little deeper into the science around sex and gender, it shows there's a lot less significant differences between males and females than is commonly thought. Yet this book feeds into the whole old fashioned notion of sex defining an entire person's physical, mental and emotional make-up. In doing this, it also excludes queer, trans, intersex and/or non-binary individuals.
All in all, the value I took from this book is the works of other people that were cited. Unfortunately, due to the absence of a full reference list, it is now up to me to go out and dig around for these works, which I believe will offer more insight and value into the topic of emotions and moods than this book did.
So I should start this with a disclaimer and say that skipped a lot of sections of this book, and specifically all of the personal stories and anecdotes from the author. Instead, I focused more on the practical advice and tips for understanding and dealing with moods and the research. There were some genuinely informative tidbits in here that I will take forward, particularly the section about distorted thoughts.
However, I have a lot of issues with the book and wouldn't recommend it. It doesn't properly reference any of the citations, is under-researched, reeks of privilege and entitlement, perpetuates gender stereotypes and is built upon biological essentialism. Let's take the time to look at each of these more in-depth.
First, whether a book is written for academic purposes or not is irrelevant, when citing other material, there should always be a clear reference list for readers to refer to. Without this, there is no merit to anything that is shared in this book, no matter how valuable I might've found it. Hand-in-hand with this, there were a lot of generalisations that were made that were clearly the perspective of the author but sometimes presented as more of an objective fact. The general lack of clear citations makes it difficult to separate the author's personal biases, commentaries and experiences from the empirical evidence. Again, the importance of referencing correctly and clearly cannot be understated.
The other issues I had with the book stem from the author herself and her perspectives. I know nothing about her other than what's in this book. Whilst I appreciate her courage and bravery in being vulnerable, she doesn't come across well in this book. Her privilege and entitlement seeps off the page. This is a book she wrote about herself and to herself. I related to almost nothing that she referenced and the assumption that every woman can relate was infuriating.
My biggest issue with this book is the gross over simplification and generalisations of what it is to be a woman, and the thread of biological essentialism that runs throughout. The author repeatedly hammers home the same point - "women are moody because of our biology, it's not our fault." I can't even be bothered to go into all of the reasons why this is a flawed perspective but suffice to say that biology is one aspect that shapes us and if you dig a little deeper into the science around sex and gender, it shows there's a lot less significant differences between males and females than is commonly thought. Yet this book feeds into the whole old fashioned notion of sex defining an entire person's physical, mental and emotional make-up. In doing this, it also excludes queer, trans, intersex and/or non-binary individuals.
All in all, the value I took from this book is the works of other people that were cited. Unfortunately, due to the absence of a full reference list, it is now up to me to go out and dig around for these works, which I believe will offer more insight and value into the topic of emotions and moods than this book did.