Review: Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope

Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope by Mark Manson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(2.5/5 stars) It's not that I didn't like it - I liked it. I just didn't have very many take away's from it.

This book was less about psychological studies and more about interesting philosophies and ideas. Manson grabbed a bunch from Nietzsche and Plato. He also dug into their life and who they really were which was interesting.

It had interesting idea's about the world and where we've come and where we're going. Artificial intelligence is an exciting yet scary thing.

You can easily create your own religion because they're basically all the same.

Instead of flying cars we got twitter. lololol It's because what we think we really want is sometimes not actually what we really want, there's other things that are important that we didn't realize.

There's the left side and right side of your brain, for feelings and emotions and the other for logic and reason. They both have to live in harmony with each other, you can't ignore your feelings.

Don't strive for happiness, strive for pain and suffering and you'll be happier. This food for thought was kinda like - expect the worst so that you'll never be disappointed.

Talked a lot about how it's human to have hope and faith but having hope is always wishing for something greater, and you will never be fulfilled.

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Review: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Psychological studies like a Malcolm Gladwell style. It's taken me a long time to get through it.

Unfortunately a bunch of the topics mentioned I've learned from taking Psychology in University.

It had interesting information but I feel it really drags on each topic.

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Review: Watership Down

Watership Down by Richard Adams
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It was SOOOOOO LOOOOOOOONG! The whole book could have been half the size and would have gotten a 3/5 stars for me. But really the story wasn't great; but how great can the story be when it's just a bunch of rabbits? lol

Basically the story is the rabbits ran away from their home burrows and kept trying to settle in different places but never could settle. That's it. The only interesting thing about the book is the characters.

I sometimes enjoyed how Richard Adams writes, sooooo much description, sometimes too much. I liked Hazel and Fiver the most. "Bigwig's strength, Fiver's insight, Blackberry's wits or Hazel's authority."

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Review: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Impactful book, practical too which is nice. Great book on how to create of break habits.

I Atomic Habits useful as I did with the book Deep Work by Cal Newport in the sense that both are about improving productivity. Deep Work was more impactful to me though as some things in Atomic Habits were repeated from other books I've read like The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Power of Habit was more so the importance and impact habits have on you, as oppose to Atomic Habits which I found more practical in the sense that how you can make or break productive or unproductive habits.

It also reminded me of the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy because of how he talks a lot about how little changes in your daily routine can make a big impact down the line, and about compound interest.

Notes:
- Change your identity change your habits - not I’ll try and run, instead say I am a runner and I’m going for a run. Look at what you want and ask yourself what type of person would I have to be to get to that and adopt traits and habits that go with that type of person
- Every goal has systems in place. It’s the systems that you can always adapt and change. What, When and where?
- Habits are automatic, you don’t even think about it.
- Cue - Craving - Response - Reward
- Cue is first indication to remind you, a trigger - noticing
- Crave is desire and motivation of the reward. - wanting
- Response is a thought or action which is the habit - obtaining
- Reward is the end goal - Satisfy the craving.
- Use 4 laws to create a good habit - cue make it obvious, craving - make it attractive, response - make it easy, reward - make it satisfying
- Use 4 laws to break a bad habit - cue make it invisible, craving make it unattractive, response make it difficult, reward make it unsatisfying
- Remove the cue to the craving, remove the craving
- Environment is very important, your closest friends and family have great influence on your habits - because it's "normal""

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Review: Matilda

Matilda by Roald Dahl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of my top favorite stories of all time! <3

I grew up in the 90's watching the movie over and over again. As a kid this story influenced me a lot to become a well educated person. It made me more curious, made me want to learn more, and that learning was fun and powerful.

Comparing the book to the movie:
- The book is just as good if not better because it explains things more and there's more detail. The movie is more cinematic.
- There's a chapter not in the movie called Ghost where Matilda borrows her friend Fred's talking parrot and brings it home, puts it up the chimney and freaks the hell out of her parents. It's pretty funny
- Once Matilda shows Miss Honey her abilities Miss Honey invites Matilda to her small quaint cottage where Matilda realizes how poor Miss Honey is. Then Miss Honey explains the story of how Miss Trunchbull basically murdered her father Agnus and took the house and the money and demanded Miss Honey that she owes her for all the food and shoes she paid for her growing up that now she owe's her so once Miss Honey got a job the paycheck went to Miss Trunchbull and she gave Miss Honey only $1 pound a week to live by. This gives Matilda the idea about writing on the chalkboard and pretending to be Magnus and threaten Miss Trunchbull to give Miss Honey back her house and everything. The entire cottage part wasn't in the movie and the story wasn't quite the same as the movie.
- The whole climax scene in the movie where Matilda and Miss Honey are in Agnus's house is not in the book at all.

I'm definitely going to read this book to my future kids <3



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Review: Clean Gut: The Breakthrough Plan for Eliminating the Root Cause of Disease and Revolutionizing Your Health

Clean Gut: The Breakthrough Plan for Eliminating the Root Cause of Disease and Revolutionizing Your Health by Alejandro Junger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting book.

The first half of the book is about why clean eating and digestion is soooooo important. I didn't even know that "leaky gut" existed lol so gross! XD

It's crazy how most of the diseases and sickness' our bodies can get are caused by bad gut health... I never knew it was THAT important. But if you think about it the only inputs our bodies get from the external world is through skin (which most things don't come in), and our lungs (which is just air), but most importantly our digestion system are completely exposed to the external world.

I never even looked into gluten free foods but I guess everyone is different and if you're unhealthy you get more and more allergies and intolerance's and then only way to get rid of them is to omit them from your diet and clean out.

The second half is more practical about what you can do to improve your gut health. Combination meals, cleanse then slowly bring back dairy or meat or gluten to see how your body reacts to it. You may be intolerant to certain food groups without knowing.

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Review: The Little Book That Saves Your Assets: What the Rich Do to Stay Wealthy in Up and Down Markets

The Little Book That Saves Your Assets: What the Rich Do to Stay Wealthy in Up and Down Markets by David M. Darst
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is great for beginners into the stock market and money markets. There wasn't much that I learned from this book. To be quite honest you're actually better off reading the book by Tony Robbins - MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom.

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Review: The Perfect Couple

The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I just inhaled this book... lol It was my first crime/murder mystery type of book and I enjoyed it. It felt like the 90's board game Clue haha. It kept me on my toes the entire time.

The story is about "the perfect couple" getting married and during the night of the rehearsal the bride's Maid of Honor dies, we don't know if it was murder, suicide, accident, nothing. But what is "the perfect couple"? And the book continues with the Chief and Nick questioning everyone that was involved, as well as glimpses of the past from different character POV's.

All the characters were great and interesting and well developed considering there's so many of them. Greer, Tag, Thomas, Featherleigh, Abby, Celeste, Benji, Shooter, Merrit, Karen, Bruce, the Chief, Nick, Marty... the list goes on and on haha. My favourites were Celeste, Shooter, Greer, and Karen.

Most of all I love how this book was written. Elin Hilderbrand did an amazing job at jumping from different POV's and timeline's. I think this is what I liked most about this book was how intriguing it made the story.

The reason why I didn't give this book a 4/5 star was because of the ending. (view spoiler)[ I spent all that time thinking omg who's the killer, is it this person, no it's this person, oh maybe it's this person... When in reality it ended up actually being an accident and Abby, the sweetest most innocent person at the wedding actually killed Merrit, because she put a sleeping pill in Featherleigh's water thinking she would sleep and not have sex with her husband Thomas that night lol, but then Featherleigh was actually getting Merrit the water. I mean yea I guess it makes sense, but for such a widely deeply written story it was disappointing. I wanted it to be a murder not an accident lol =/ (hide spoiler)]

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Review: Nine Perfect Strangers

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The reason why I liked this book was because it's all about human psychology, wellness and self-improvement.

The story is intriguing too but it's a bit disappointing, it could have been more. It's about 9 strangers who meet at a wellness retreat and Masha the owner trying to break them and fix them.

The book wasn't so much about the 9 strangers, more so 6 strangers because it was focused way more on the characters: Francis, Ben & Jessica, Heather & Napoleon & Zoe.

Ben & Jessica, and Zoe were my favorite characters. I guess you pick your favorites based on who you can relate to the most and which age group is closest to you. Zoe is a younger girl, and Ben & Jessica are my age, trying to sort out relationship issues and money. Francis' story was okay but Liane Moriarty focused too much on her.

Masha was pretty creepy but I knew from the get-go that (view spoiler)[ she was unstable. I thought that mayyyyybe she just says and does this to all the people who come to the wellness retreat, but in actuality she broke during this one and took things too far. (hide spoiler)] The ending was kinda disappointing too. (view spoiler)[ It was like all this climax and trouble, with the fire and Masha just loosing it and fired poor Yao and the other girl who worked for Masha.... and they got out and lived happily ever after... lol (hide spoiler)]

I wanted more suspense and thrill.

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Review: Paris Ever After

Paris Ever After by K.S.R. Burns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Enjoyed it. Nothing exciting about this book, it's just about relationships with people and Paris :P

I've never been able to relate to a character in a book before like how I do with Amy. She loves her baby in her womb soooo much it's heart warming :) She's always thinking of her. Every decision she makes is based around her baby.

Reminds me soooo much of One Summer in Paris by Sarah Morgan, with the odd exboyfriend/husband chasing after a girl who fled to Paris. The girl is in the hopes to renew/reset her life in Paris and wants to change things about her life. It also reminds me of Paris for One and Other Stories Jojo Moyes for basically the same reasons lol I feel like reading these 3 books in a short time frame was a bad idea because I'm morphing them into one big hot mess lol

William (main character Amy's husband) reminds me of one of my ex boyfriends actually, practically a walking encyclopedia, so smart, but not so smart in social and emotional situations... Seems to be the right guy but really isn't.

Margaret was a funny and entertaining character but I didn't like the whole drama about her long lost daughter, that was just boring and just seemed like extra and unnecessary for the story.

I really did not like the ending, it was pretty disappointing. (view spoiler)[ I felt like since William didn't care to be with Amy, she just settled for whatever she could get because she cares about having a family for her baby. (hide spoiler)]

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Review: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book is DATED.

I'm really not sure why I wanted to read it, it's wayyyyyy over regurgitating and irritating

Yes, education is important, yes the school systems suck, the types of reading, reading history, gawd I'm dying of boredom even talking about it lol

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Review: The Selection

The Selection by Kiera Cass
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I actually enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. Not enough to really like it, but enough to read the next one.

The story was like the Hunger Games where you're being selected, and the main character has a younger sister she wants to protect, and she wants to take care of her family. But unlike in Hunger Games where they fight to the death to survive, this book is about being selected to win the Prince's heart and to beat 35 other contestants.

I can tell Kiera Cass knows how to manipulate people in to believing certain things about the characters, she's definitely crafty. There's just enough mystery to keep the reader from getting bored.

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