piabo's reviews
287 reviews

I wasn't really impressed by this read. The beginning was more or less interesting but later didn't get much value out of it. Honestly found it quite boring to hear some old man ramble about people getting "too scared" by climate change or about how wmoir chances of dying are under dif erent circumstance. Where are the solutions and ideas? And who gave you the authority to judge many of these topics as if you are an expert in all of them. Yes, the perspective of a scientist is cool but I honestly feel like the author made it too easy for himself.
But also understandable. Don't want to hate with this review, after all it's an acceptable read. Just a bit annoyed how long it took me to finish and how little I remember.

+++ re-read in 2024 +++
A beautiful children’s book about time and being busy. 

Meine Großtante hat meiner Mutter dieses Buch zu, 14. Geburtstag geschenkt und darein geschrieben, dass sie es alle paar Jahre wieder lesen sollte, da man es jedes Mal anders versteht.
Ich habe das Buch nun zum zweiten Mal gelesen (und früher immer die Serie geguckt) und stimme dem voll und ganz zu. Auch als Erwachsene regt dieses Buch zum nachdenken an. Diese grauen Herren haben es irgendwie auch in mein Leben geschafft und ich will sie da gar nicht haben. Viel lieber möchte ich so sein wie Momo. Ich denke wir alle tragen in uns das Geschenk des Zuhörens und der Zeit. Lasst sie uns nutzen <3

A book about networks and complexity in various disciplines. I found the beginning slow but enjoyed the end! It has a lot of interesting case studies on where we can use network thinking and how it is important in our lives nowadays. 

I left to SF and did not take this book with me. I might pick it up again at some point (likely as an audiobook) but not interested for now. It has not convinced me with its rambling against poor people and "scientific" explanation for how the brain works.

I think a bit too technical for now and hits a little too close to home. Let me take a bit of a break from this topic for a while.
Still an interesting book and I would like to read it at some point.

Beautifully written and inspiring story.
I love the attention to detail and how the author tries not to judge people and their motives a lot and even mentions when memories might not be correct because other people imagine them differently. Or the note in the beginning that the book is not a reflection on Mormonism because one family can never represent an entire religious group.
The author is so reflected and I love it.

I read the book because it's a well-known and loved book, but also because it was mentioned as a book against homeschooling and I recently read a book pro that (or a book about "unschooling" more specifically). But I am glad that this book does not contradict my idea about young people wanting to learn out of an inert desire. Yes, homeschooling for Tara and her siblings was detrimental to their development, and I understand that people are against homeschooling because of experiences like this. But I do not think that forcing young students to school will solve that issue. Children can go to school and still have an abusive family and not get all the educational chances they deserve because of that. I believe more social workers, better access to educational materials, and higher social security for working class people can already help a lot. But I do not know.

It was inspiring to see how a young person, despite all the challenges and little access to formal education and knowledge, still manages to learn so much and move on to writing a beautiful book. Resilience is a fascinating thing.

Only the last rule made sense. The rest tried hard to be interesting or funny, but were contradicting, not science-based, and just factually wrong. I didn't enjoy it.

Such a big load of crap. How can you demonize food that much?
Food that arrives through the window of your car isn't food? Aha, what is it, then? It's edible, and it can keep your body fueled.
And other claims, too, just sound stupid. Why, please?
This guy is contradicting himself in a few claims. One rule says we should not make any exceptions, and the other clearly says that obviously, not everything is affected by this rule, and we should be open-minded.

I just don't like the whole premise of the book. And I am clearly emotionally invested and felt attacked. I just wish people would stop hating on food and people in larger bodies so much. This approach has not solved anything. 

<<< 2024 Review >>>
I love this book so much. During this re-read I took a lot of time to go through much of the cited research and started to read more current papers on this topic on my own, and I am so happy about all the things I am learning.
Diet-culture is really messing with the lives of many of us. Believe it or not, but what you eat, and your body fat percentage aren't actually crucial for your wellbeing. 
Diets, including so-called "Wellness Diets" that seem to focus on wellbeing rather than weight loss, do not work for more than 5% of all people who have ever undertaken them in the long term. After 5 years, most people gain back their weight and more. We are sold an idea of ideal weight that does not even exist. Weight is not the health villain it is made to be, the obesity epidemic is not a real thing. What are much bigger determinants of health outcomes are social economic status, experiences of injustice, weight-stigma, and weight cycling.
The book does a great job at distinguishing between correlation and causation.
While talking about so many very important social justice topics that we should focus on instead of worrying about our weights.

I really want to write a longer review on this topic at some point. So far, I just highly recommend Christy Harrison.


<<< 2021 Review >>>
A must-read for every person who thinks monitoring what they eat is important to at least some level. And especially for every person calling themselves intersectional feminist and social justice activist.

I have been listening to Christy's podcast for a while now and really recommend checking that out as well, but this book is all you need for now.

Christy Harrison does a wonderful critique on the history of diet-culture, current research, and how it all plays into social issues and personal mental health.

She is also an excellent writer.
I can't believe this bs is so deep in our (Western) culture. Really hope we can get rid of that on every level.

Honestly, a very belief-challenging read! This book attacks some of my "liberal" views and gives interesting thought experiments and scientific data.
While I generally think this is such an important approach and that we should all be more open to this kind of thinking without dismissing it immediately, I was not convinced by every argument.
I am definitely no expert in this field, but I do feel like some proposed solutions were a bit over the top/pessimistic/conservatist without a reason. I think we should all invest more resources in finding humane and realistic solutions to the disparities shown in this book.

The print version of this book apparently has a forward by Kathleen Stock, a feminist very critical of trans people's rights. From what I see, is this book not transphobic. The author was very clear to repeatedly highlight that gender is always a spectrum and that we can never judge an individual based on the overall data. I will have to read more to be able to make a final verdict.

Don't know why I thought this was a nonfiction for the longest time. It's actually a lot of short stories all somehow connected to (people from) China!
Nice lovely easy read. Each story carries some deeper questions about society and how we (or only Chinese people?) live together.