Book Review: The Best of Me

Wow, I really apologize for the super long hiatus. I just checked my last post and noticed it was in January! Holy crap, time flies fast! So I kinda went to India for a month-long vacation, and I guess time really got away from me before and after that. Anyways, a million apologies, and here's a new book review!

In tune with my out-of-the-closet Nicholas Sparks book and movie obsession, I decided to read "The Best of Me" in preparation for the release of the movie. Four or five hours after picking it up at the local bookstore, I put down the completed novel, and was not at all covered in the typical afterglow I get after a good, cheesy Nicholas Sparks read. The story felt like a conglomerate of all previous Nicholas Sparks' novels, particularly The Notebook and Dear John. It lacked originality and creativity, and felt like someone had just combined all the "proper" elements of an "epic love story". Lots of cheesy, lovey-dovey moments, a splash of separation, a pinch of family drama, and a dash of sacrifice. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Teenagers Dawson Cole and Amanda Collier are from complete opposite sides of the track. Despite the world being against them, and their radically different socioeconomic backgrounds, Dawson and Amanda fall head over heels in love until the tragic events of one night send them reeling and onto different paths. Nearly twenty-five years later, the death of Dawson's mentor, Tuck Hostetler, re-unites the two former lovers. As they carry out Tuck's last wishes, Dawson and Amanda are pitched head first into the countless memories from their past, their regrets, and their long lost love for one another. Can their love ever be re-kindled or has too much transpired in the last twenty-five years for them to be those two people that were once crazy about each other?

I suppose it's worth a read, especially if you want to watch the movie, but I wouldn't expect too much of it (I stopped watching the movie twenty minutes in....what can I say, I get bored easily). Nicholas Sparks really needs to up his game and come up with some new material instead of recycling his usual "tear-jerker" material.

Book Review: Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

I recently joined our company's book club and our first selection was Susan Cain's powerful read "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking". My main motive for joining book club was to encourage myself to read books I would have normally never selected, and Quiet was indeed a novel I would have never picked myself. 

Susan Cain details the difficulties that introverts face in today's business world through a variety of interesting anecdotes, research data, and historical examples. Her novel is incredibly engaging, entertaining, amusing, and informational. Before reading this book, I never knew that 1/3 of the world's population were introverts. Furthermore, I would have never picked up on the difficulties an introvert faces in a business environment. Being a fairly extroverted person myself, I never wondered what life is like on the other side and this book really opened my eyes to some of the problems introverts face in our world. 



I won't speak too much to the book as I don't want to take away from anyone's experience of reading it, but the novel spurred very many passionate discussions in our little book club. The other younger colleagues and myself were able to connect much of what we read that occurs in the business world back to the high school and/or college environment and I personally found that very interesting. All throughout high school and much of college, we were told to join as many clubs as we can, participate in as many activities as possible, and most importantly, take up leadership positions in as many avenues as possible in order to appeal to college admissions' boards. For some of us, this was not a huge deal, and didn't stress us out extraordinarily, but I can't imagine what it would be like for my more introverted classmates. They had a choice between forcing themselves to be someone they weren't, or not being able to go to the college of their choice. To this day, most colleges expect leadership experience, extracurricular activities, and essentially evidence of a studious, but outgoing personality on college applications. Instead of choosing the more intelligent person, they will almost always choose the more well-rounded person. While I personally never suffered due to this criteria they set upon us since I loved extra curricular activities and got an inordinate amount of pleasure out of bossing other people around (just kidding =)), I'm sure students all over the country weren't and aren't being considered by their top pick universities because of their subtler, more introverted personalities. And from what I've seen in my limited exposure to the corporate world, this unfair screening process seems to have continued into the business world as well. This discrimination is resulting in top companies and top schools missing out on countless, insanely intelligent people and it seems to be such a travesty that all their skills aren't being utilized by our world, simply because we don't hear their quieter voices. 

“There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” 

Despite the incredibly engaging nature of Susan Cain's novel, I did notice a few things throughout her novel that I was slightly disappointed with. First of all, upon finishing the book, the reader comes off with the distinctive impression that being an extrovert is a slightly negative quality. While trying to portray introverts in a better light, Susan Cain simultaneously conveyed extroversion is a somewhat negative characteristic, which I thought was a bit unfair. She had a habit of connecting introversion with intelligence and extroversion with loudness, a rather unequal and unfair association. Secondly, I was a little disappointed by the repetitiveness of her ideas as well; she parroted the same qualities for introversion and extroversion in many chapters of the book. 

I think "Quiet" is an excellent book suggestion to anyone in a leadership position in the corporate world as well as all hiring and recruiting personnel. Susan Cain showcases how much we are truly missing out on by pushing the "Extrovert Ideal" and viewing introversion as a negative and unfavorable quality.