3.3 Stars

Disclaimer: I am not the target audience for the book. I’ve read it because it was sent to me by the review club. I’ve never been a fan of self-help books, and my opinion remains unchanged.

12 Rules for Life offers just what it claims in the title and much more. The author is a professor of psychology and a clinical psychologist. He mentions how the idea of writing the book (by compiling his answers on Quora) came when a literary agent suggested it.

The book is more than 400 pages long with 200+ footnotes and not to mention a bundle of references at the end. The author deals with each rule in detail. There are frequent references to Bible, religion, and at times, other religions.

He also talks about animals, evolution, human nature (obviously!), and situations from his life. I liked the dry humor in bits and pieces, though the overall tone (that’s exclusive to self-help books) bored me quite a bit.

The rules I liked were the ones that deal with friends and kids. He uses his personal and professional experiences to explain, and that made them interesting. My personal opinions aside, I liked how he put across his ideas for these.

The other two that caught my attention were about listening being precise in speech (irony, I know), and not bothering kids when they are skateboarding.

To sum up, I enjoyed the book better than what I expected when I started it. The book did give me a few points to think about, so that’s something for sure. The rating went from 2 to 3.3 stars for the same reason.

People frowning and smirking at my review (rant) are likely to enjoy the book a lot more. Don’t listen to me to make your decision (as you would have already summarized). Go ahead and give it a shot. You might love it. Who knows!

I received a review copy from Indic Academy and Indic Book Club. This review is posted as a part of the Thousand Reviewers Club.

P.S: Can Penguin please use a larger print next time to save readers’ eyes?

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