Samantha Matt

For the most part, I thought this book was, well, average. I suppose that's the point, but still.

I liked the parts about not wearing yourself down too much in the workplace. I think that's a good message to women in general, because there is often an unspoken, internalized assumption that if you're not giving 110% constantly, you're a failure.

Still, I found a lot of the messaging hollow in most areas and in some places, straight-up contradictory. The entire thesis was that we come from a culture that raises us on the idea that we're all awesome and special and destined for greatness, and how that sets people up for failure. That's an interesting idea and all, but in the books conclusion, the author basically reiterates this cultural message. I think it would've benefitted the book to maybe balance the "relax, it's okay to be ordinary" thing with a productive message on how to healthily push ourselves towards self improvement. The message of "relax" often teetered on giving into personal flaws entirely and just giving up or giving in to the urge to slack off.

I don't know, maybe I just personally think there should be a balance between pushing yourself towards betterment and accepting your averageness, maybe in that way, the book isn't for me. For instance, I've been really working on saving money and not spending impulsively, because in my point of view that can lead down the path to financial self harm. Every time she encouraged the reader like, "go splurge on Starbucks and Pottery Barn because you're not perfect!" my skin would crawl, because that can tiptoe into actually dangerous territory for someone in my position.

That kinda transitions nicely into my next, and biggest point: a lot of this book hinges on privilege. Particularly, socioeconomic and racial privilege. For instance, a person of color (especially women of color) won't necessarily have the luxury of just doing their required job in the workplace. They must push harder and be 'above-average' to simply be treated on par with their 'average' white counterparts (and they might not even make it to on par status).

Socioeconomically, like I mentioned before, a person can't necessarily order takeout for multiple weeks in a row because "it's okay! We can't all be fabulous self-sufficient chefs at home!" Like no, I'm not a culinary genius and sometimes the meals I do make at home are really simple and cheap. the reason I can't just throw my hands up and say, "it's fine! I'll skip out on cooking for a few weeks because life is hard and I'm only an average human!" I can't do that, because within a couple months, I'd be on the brink of financial ruin.

This book also seems to encourage being judgmental of people who are striving to be better. Sometimes, it comes off as petty and hypocritical. There's a whole section of the book on social media envy, which I agree is a problem, where the author speculates that people's picture-perfect Instagram lives aren't just so. Which, yeah, that's probably true. But she harps on how annoying people are who take photos of themselves at marathons, and how they're probably unhappy and hate having to wake up at 4a.m. for training. How happy family photos are staged and that they probably have a rough time in their day-to-day. How annoying it is that people will post monthly staged age-progress photos of their babies without acknowledging that babies are exhausting and hard to live with (ironic, because her own feed is full of these exact photos). How a nice vacation photo probably isn't showing how much credit card debt the couple wracked up going on that trip. It felt like a ton of frankly rude projection. Maybe all those things are true (though is it really that common to wrack up thousands in credit card debt to go on vacation?? I would die??), but I don't know, maybe people just like sharing the happy parts of their lives on Instagram too.

If I were a cis, well-off woman in a corporate job in New England, who could afford to own a home and go on fabulous European vacations, maybe I would've liked this book more. Overall though, I found it difficult to relate to.… (más)