How Do We Know We're Doing It Right
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
Modern life is full of choices. We're told that happiness lies within and we can be whoever we want to be. But with endless possibility comes a feeling of restlessness; like we're somehow failing to live our best life. What does doing it right even look like? And why do so many women feel like they're getting it wrong? From faster-than-fast fashion to millennial burnout, the explosion of wellness to the rise of cancel culture, Pandora Sykes interrogates the stories we've been sold and the ones we tell ourselves. Wide-ranging, thoughtful and witty, How Do We Know We're Doing It Right? explores the anxieties and myths that consume our lives and the tools we use to muddle through. So sit back and take a breath. It's time to stop worrying about the answers and start delighting in the questions.
Reviews with the most likes.
Insightful, less enjoyable. I am still not sure if i know i'm doing it right
I wanted to love this book, but I just didn't. I know it's essays and not a memoir, but you would expect some personal history. Instead, there's an assumed familiarity that has an effect of contrived relatability and inappropriate intimacy - why should you be telling me about your episiotomy when I don't even know where you're from? How you met your husband? What your career path looked like?
Really, I don't need to know what Freud has to say on burnout or consumerism or empathy or intentional political ignorance or whatever other topic is being tackled. What I want, and what I bought this book for, is the Pandora Sykes take on these things, or at least a bit more insight into her experiences with them. Instead, she insists on maintaining journalistic objectivity, which may work for her other writing but falls short in this format. Without the thread of Sykes's life to link them together, the essays feel like a randomly compiled series of articles rather than a cohesive narrative of any kind, despite the fact that they were all clearly written specifically for this book.
Insightful? Sure. Sort of. But compelling? Not for me, I'm sorry to say.
