Book Cover - Book Review: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

Start giving a f*ck on what is really important to you

It’s almost impossible to miss this widely acclaimed book, which stands firmly at the top of the nonfiction literature charts since its publication. Does it hold the attractive promise of living more fully? To a large extent, it does.

The book is relatively short, written with an affirmative style, straight to the point, like an old friend would talk to you. The author’s opinions are clearly formulated, and there are so many catchy and inspiring sentences in this book that you are forced to like the book. It’s entertaining.

Besides these undeniable qualities, this book fell short when it comes to support the argumentation. Most content is based on the author’s experiences and stories of famous people, and even if it obvious to me that the author did a lot of reading, there is no reference to any other book. The book doesn’t even contain a bibliography, something unconventional in the nonfiction literature. You have to drink author’s words, while almost every ideas lies on well-known principles and practices such as meditation, stoicism, ego management, emotional intelligence. I’m not a big fan of this writing style, but the book just works.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck has helped me refocus and think more clearly about what I find important in my life, especially in my work, where it’s so easy to start giving a f*ck about everything, and sometimes feel miserable. The success of the book shows things could very different.

About the author

Julien Sobczak works as a software developer for Scaleway, a French cloud provider. He is a passionate reader who likes to see the world differently to measure the extent of his ignorance. His main areas of interest are productivity (doing less and better), human potential, and everything that contributes in being a better person (including a better dad and a better developer).

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