Happy Monday, friends! Florida had a weird cold front blow through this weekend. After weeks and weeks of temps in the mid-80s, it got down to the upper 30s. !! Brr. The cold weather isn’t going to stay around (wah), but it shouldn’t as warm this week as it has been lately, so that’s something to be happy about.
Last week, I finished two books and liked both of them. That’s always nice! Here are my reviews:
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build New Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (★★★★☆)
In Atomic Habits, James Clear lays out a specific formula for how to become more successful at habit formation: You must make your goals obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. On the flip side, you must make habits that you want to break invisible, unattractive, difficult, and dissatisfying. If you’ve read about habits before, there’s really nothing new that Clear brings to the table so there isn’t anything earth-shattering in his approach or this book. But it is a good primer on habit formation and there were some specific nuggets of information to help me with my own habit practices. Specifically, the idea of starting as small as possible and trying to become just 1% better on a regular basis. However, I cannot stress enough how triggering this book can be for someone healing from diet culture trauma. I found myself falling into some problematic thought patterns as I was reading this book, as I considered my own weight and health and the habits I “should” form. (For example, one of the “good” daily habits that Clear lists is weighing yourself every morning. Um, what? That is a troubling daily habit! Unless you’re training for something and need to fit into a specific weight class, there is no reason to weigh yourself every day!) Even with his problematic language, I am still giving this book 4 stars because it was helpful in some respects and I appreciate the approachable style of the writing.
We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we hope it will come quickly. In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed. It is not until months or years later that we realize the true value of the previous work we have done. This can result in a “valley of disappointment” where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work without experiencing any results. However, this work is not wasted. It is simply being stored. It is not until much later that the full value of previous efforts is revealed.
One of the most common questions I hear is, “How long does it take to build a new habit?” But what people really should be asking is, “How many does it take to form a new habit?” That is, how many repititions are required to make a habit automatic?
The central idea is to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. Much of the battle of building better habits comes down to finding ways to reduce the friction associated with our good habits and increase the friction associated with our bad ones.
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (★★★★☆)
Man, I really liked this contemporary romance. I love that Olivia Dade’s characters are always a bit older (late thirties, in this novel, which isn’t “older” in the grand scheme of things, but is a little unusual for the romance genre) and some of whom are fat and aren’t trying to change themselves. So refreshing! In this novel, Marcus is a lead character on a Game of Thrones-esque show. When a fan of the show, April, tweets a photo of herself cosplaying as one of the other leads in the show, she is inundated with horrifying messages about her weight. And, of course, some truly terrible men include Marcus in the conversation, thinking he’ll be as disgusted by April’s body as they are. He’s not; instead, he asks April out on a date on Twitter. (Mostly to shut up these stupid men, but he’s also attracted to her as well.) Thus begins a really sweet love story between Marcus and April. There are a handful of other storylines mixed into this novel, such as April’s love of writing fanfiction and Marcus’s public persona as “just a pretty face” even though he’s incredibly intelligent. They both have a lot of internal growth and healing to do. I could have done without the included fanfiction stories and really dumb movie scripts (I skipped over all of them, which just goes to show that they weren’t necessary to the story). All in all, this was a fantastic contemporary romance! (Open door.)
What I’m Reading This Week
- The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (audio) – I have less than two hours left in this audiobook and I’m enjoying it! I don’t think it’s the best Penny book (there are just sooo many side plots), but even an okay Penny book is better than most of the mysteries out there.
- Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber (print) – I’m nearly finished with this slim book. I’m reading a few essays a day and it’s really, really good.
- Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley (print) – I’m loving this YA novel! It’s part of my challenge to read all of the books I added to my Goodreads TBR before 2018. I’m 100 pages in and can hardly put it down.
What are you reading?
I really enjoyed Atomic Habits (and bought the book – which is rare for me). I think I still prefer Gretchen Rubin’s writing ever so slightly, but James Clear is a great writer and there is so much food for thought.
I think I like his newsletter even better than his book, though. I’ve been getting it for several years (it comes once/week) and is a quick read with lots of great nuggets of truth that always leave me thinking – I get a lot of quotes out of these newsletters!
Ooh, I am definitely going to sign up for his email list. I love getting helpful nuggets of information in a shorter format.
Nope, no daily weigh-ins over here either! i have heard a lot of good things about that book, and it sounds like he has a lot of good ideas. I’m wondering if I actually need to read it though- I think I get the gist from your review!
I’m currently reading The Choice by Edith Eger. It’s a memoir about how she survived the holocaust, and now I’m reading about her experiences after emigrating to America.. It’s so so so so so so so so good!!!
Honestly, I’m not sure if you really need to read Atomic Habits! You seem to be pretty good about setting goals, maintaining your habits, etc. Maybe sign up for his email list, and see if you gain anything from that?
The Choice sounds super heavy but really impactful!
I’m reading Caste by Isable Wilkerson as my “serious” book and it’s taking me a while to get through it. I’m also reading Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, a superhero yarn told from the perspective of an assistant to a villain. I’ve really just started Hench, but it’s really great so far!
Caste took me a long time to read! I wanted to take it slowly because there is so much information to unravel and sit with. It’s so good, though!
I have thought about reading Atomic Habits as others have really raved about it but I haven’t quite felt motivated to pick it up. I really should, though. But yikes – daily weigh ins. I think for most people that would not be healthy. For the longest time I did not own a scale. I do have one now because I like to check in occasionally on my weight but I could not start my day by weighing myself!
I finished “Psalm for the Wild Built” over the weekend which is a book that several people have raved about but I felt just ‘meh’ about it. Sci Fi is not a genre I typically enjoy, though, but a friend who has similar reading tastes said it was one of her favorite books of 2021 so I had high hopes. Last night I started the non-fiction book, “Invisible Child.” It was on lots of different best of lists but I’m not sure what exactly prompted me to request it. It follows a family living in poverty in Brooklyn and especially follows the eldest of 8 child. It is going to be a heavy read but an important one, I think. I just started it last night and am only 5% in or so and while the content is heavy, the writing style is very engaging. Reviews have said it reads like a novel and I am finding that to be the case so far!
You might like Atomic Habits, but it also might not be something you really need in your life. Upholders/Enneagram 1s are pretty good at setting and maintaining habits, so you probably wouldn’t learn anything new from the book!
I haven’t heard of either book you mentioned! I’ll have to check out Invisible Child.
Ooooh I am going to PASS on that book. Daily weigh-ins would do in my mental health. I haven’t weighed myself since August 2020 and I don’t plan to ever again. It was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I’m so glad you gave a trigger warning, because otherwise I might have read it!
I was so shocked when he said that daily weigh-ins are a good habit to maintain! SIR! No, no, no. I think there were some good nuggets of info, but he basically just took what was in The Power of Habit and said it in a different way. Meh.
Oh, I’ve been working with a dietitian who just recommend “Atomic Habits” to me, & my husband said he loved it. Guess I’ll have to get on that!
I’ll be interested in knowing your thoughts on Atomic Habits! It definitely made me think about how to set really tiny goals that can help me make some of the changes I want to make in my life.