alltheradreads's Reviews (1.9k)

A while back, I stumbled upon a TED talk called "The Art of Stillness" and fell in love with the way Pico Iyer talked about going nowhere. I love travel and adventure and exploring new places, but I also deeply love my solitude and times of stillness and quiet, so what he said affirmed my belief that the calm is so crucial in our lives. This book was just 65 pages and meant to be digested in one sitting. It's full of tranquil and stunning photography and a slightly more detailed look at the art of stillness than he presented in his talk, but both are wonderful and worth your short amount of time!

I've seen this little book EVERYWHERE but really just never wanted to spend money on it. The library came through on this one! I read it while sitting at the car place getting my car inspected (at 7:30 am...) and here's the honest truth: it wasn't that great. Hardly anything she said was news to me, she was super repetitive, and I just wasn't amazed. I appreciate her core message that we should only keep the things that spark joy and get rid of the rest, but this book just didn't really wow me. To be fair, I did do some tidying up when I finished reading, so maybe that's the whole point?

Okay, confession time. I could NOT finish this book. I gave it a shot, I really did. I got to page 172, but I just couldn't do it. I don't know if it's that I'm used to Aziz being pure humor, and this was a weird mix of stats and facts and research with humor thrown in, or what, but I just didn't like it. I thought the topic would interest me since obviously I live in today's world and am single so the way the dating world works these days affects me...but I didn't find the research or his findings to be that interesting. Oh well. Aziz, try again with the whole book writing thing and I'll give you another shot, but maybe stick to being funny since it's what you're really good at.

Malala's story, from the very first page to the very last page, is powerful. I kept having to remind myself that she was YOUNG. She was a middle-schooler when most of the story took place. It's amazing to me how brave, mature, worldly, passionate, and dedicated she was to a cause and a life so much bigger than herself, even when her own life was in total chaos and confusion. I was blown away by her courage.

This book, since it's the story of Malala's life, was less twisty and turny than some fiction books, but it was still gripping and engaging throughout. At times, there were passages that seemed dry or didn't hold my interest very well, but they still were necessary to set the stage of her circumstances growing up. The way she opened the book with the most dramatic (and well-known) tragedy of her life and then flashed back to give context was very smart in terms of plot line, I thought.