Shawn
Updated a reading goal:
Read 120 books in 2026
Progress so far: 60 / 120 50%
This is a book about something we do all the time and still manage to get wrong constantly. Brooks comes at conversation as a behavioral scientist, and that’s what makes it work — she’s not giving you tips, she’s showing you data. Negotiators think they ask questions in more than half their turns. The actual number is under 10%. That kind of gap is the book in miniature.
The TALK framework is genuinely useful, and each chapter earns its place. The receptiveness recipe in Chapter 7 is the most immediately applicable thing I’ve read in a nonfiction book in a while. The Cooper-Colbert grief conversation and the Dev-Anil reconciliation are the emotional high points — both feel earned. Brooks writes warmly without being soft.
My one note is that the book is most alive in the anecdotes and most dutiful in the research-findings sections. But that’s a minor complaint. If you work in sales, manage a team, teach, or have any relationship you’d like to not ruin, this is worth your time.
This is a book about something we do all the time and still manage to get wrong constantly. Brooks comes at conversation as a behavioral scientist, and that’s what makes it work — she’s not giving you tips, she’s showing you data. Negotiators think they ask questions in more than half their turns. The actual number is under 10%. That kind of gap is the book in miniature.
The TALK framework is genuinely useful, and each chapter earns its place. The receptiveness recipe in Chapter 7 is the most immediately applicable thing I’ve read in a nonfiction book in a while. The Cooper-Colbert grief conversation and the Dev-Anil reconciliation are the emotional high points — both feel earned. Brooks writes warmly without being soft.
My one note is that the book is most alive in the anecdotes and most dutiful in the research-findings sections. But that’s a minor complaint. If you work in sales, manage a team, teach, or have any relationship you’d like to not ruin, this is worth your time.
Molka is ambitious and clearly the work of a writer with something real to say. The dual POV structure works — Junyoung’s chapters are uncomfortable in exactly the way they’re supposed to be, and the Korean folklore thread earns its place. But I never got as absorbed in these characters as I did in The Eyes Are the Best Part. Junyoung is deliberately ordinary, which is the point, but it keeps you at arm’s length. Dahye spends too long in the Hyukjoon spiral before she becomes the character you want her to be. The ending delivers, and Bora driving that car is the best moment in the book. Just didn’t hit as hard as the debut.
Molka is ambitious and clearly the work of a writer with something real to say. The dual POV structure works — Junyoung’s chapters are uncomfortable in exactly the way they’re supposed to be, and the Korean folklore thread earns its place. But I never got as absorbed in these characters as I did in The Eyes Are the Best Part. Junyoung is deliberately ordinary, which is the point, but it keeps you at arm’s length. Dahye spends too long in the Hyukjoon spiral before she becomes the character you want her to be. The ending delivers, and Bora driving that car is the best moment in the book. Just didn’t hit as hard as the debut.