2010 Dewey Decimal Project: 158 R
I've been reading Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project blog for over two years, and I've been wanting to read the book.
It took me a while to get into the book - I wasn't excited about the first two chapters (and actually kind of annoyed with her chapter about her marriage) - but I did end up liking it. I'm not sure how it is if you haven't read the blog. Because I read her blog, I'm used to her style and the connections she makes, but I'm not sure they hold up quite as strongly if you don't already know all of her lists.
Structurally, if I'd been her editor, I would have made her split chapter 6 (June) into two separate chapters: one about June and one for the second half of the chapter where she does a six-month check-in.
If you read her blog, you know that she advertises that "I'm much more forthcoming in my book than I am on my blog. I call my family members by their true names. I talk about juicy episodes that I've never mentioned here. I reveal a very major fact about my life that I've never discussed on my blog." For those of you who, like me, find that mildly irritating, here are some spoilers: her husband's name is Jamie, and their kids are Eliza and Eleanor. (I found this hard to adjust to; one of those would be fine, but the two of them together is a little too cutesy for my tastes.) The juicy episodes are less juicy and more too long for a blog. And the major fact about her life: Jamie has hepatitis C: "Hepatitis C has a very long course - of the people who develop cirrhosis, most don't get it for twenty or thirty years. Thirty years sounds like a very long time, but Jamie picked up hepatitis C through a blood transfusion during a heart operation when he was eight years old, before screening for hepatitis C began. And now he's thirty-eight." To me, this seems like an odd thing to leave out of her blog. Part of the impetus for her happiness project is that she wants to be prepared for something happening to Jamie. (It also explains her fervent interest in organ donation.)
Overall, I liked the book, but I don't know that I learned anything - other than details of Gretchen's life - that I hadn't learned from the blog. (Where I have, indeed, learned a lot.)
It took me a while to get into the book - I wasn't excited about the first two chapters (and actually kind of annoyed with her chapter about her marriage) - but I did end up liking it. I'm not sure how it is if you haven't read the blog. Because I read her blog, I'm used to her style and the connections she makes, but I'm not sure they hold up quite as strongly if you don't already know all of her lists.
Structurally, if I'd been her editor, I would have made her split chapter 6 (June) into two separate chapters: one about June and one for the second half of the chapter where she does a six-month check-in.
If you read her blog, you know that she advertises that "I'm much more forthcoming in my book than I am on my blog. I call my family members by their true names. I talk about juicy episodes that I've never mentioned here. I reveal a very major fact about my life that I've never discussed on my blog." For those of you who, like me, find that mildly irritating, here are some spoilers: her husband's name is Jamie, and their kids are Eliza and Eleanor. (I found this hard to adjust to; one of those would be fine, but the two of them together is a little too cutesy for my tastes.) The juicy episodes are less juicy and more too long for a blog. And the major fact about her life: Jamie has hepatitis C: "Hepatitis C has a very long course - of the people who develop cirrhosis, most don't get it for twenty or thirty years. Thirty years sounds like a very long time, but Jamie picked up hepatitis C through a blood transfusion during a heart operation when he was eight years old, before screening for hepatitis C began. And now he's thirty-eight." To me, this seems like an odd thing to leave out of her blog. Part of the impetus for her happiness project is that she wants to be prepared for something happening to Jamie. (It also explains her fervent interest in organ donation.)
Overall, I liked the book, but I don't know that I learned anything - other than details of Gretchen's life - that I hadn't learned from the blog. (Where I have, indeed, learned a lot.)