52 Books: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I’ve read all of John Green’s books and even though I’ve enjoyed them, I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I certainly wasn’t planning to buy The Fault in Our Stars as soon as it came out, but someone whose opinion I respect recommended it HIGHLY to me and so I pre-ordered it on the Kindle and started reading as soon as it downloaded.

I have a few problems with John Green’s books, a couple of which are down to him and one of which is not. The one that’s not his fault is that I think he’s overrated because he’s a man. That’s not to say I don’t think he’s a wonderful writer, because I do, but it’s the age-old issue that a man writing about love is universal and important, while a woman writing about love is domestic and frivolous. And that gets my back up. (See also: One Day – if it had been written by a woman, it would totally have been dismissed as chick lit.)

The issues I have that are down to him is that his books have previously been quite samey: there’s a dorky boy, an apparently unobtainable girl – generally a Manic Pixie Dream Girl – and a wisecracking best friend. There’s probably also a roadtrip. And the teens don’t talk like teens. At all. Generally at least one, if not all, of them is rather pretentious. The fact that even the title of this latest book is pretentious did not bode well…

I deliberately read nothing about the plot of the book before buying it and I’m glad because I think if I had I probably would have avoided it. This is the Amazon summary:

52 Books: Switch by Chip & Dan Heath

I bought this book after Martha Beck (you know I love her, right?) recommended it here.

I wasn’t sure how I’d get on with it, but I actually found it fascinating. It’s really aimed at businesses – or, I suppose, managers of businesses: it’s about problem solving, getting people to do things they don’t want to do or can’t be bothered to do. (That makes it sound sinister, but it really isn’t – it’s getting them to do good things, honest.) I read it primarily as manager of, you know, myself and then, as I was reading, realised lots of it could easily apply to managing my family too.

The thing I loved the most about it was the idea of the elephant and the rider:

Human decision making is like a tiny rider on a massive elephant.  The rider may think he’s in charge, but the elephant’s will always wins. Both are imperfect – the rider over-thinks and over-analyzes.  The elephant acts on passion and emotion. 

That totally resonates with me as the rider sits here telling me to get on with writing this, while my elephant tries to drag me into the kitchen for another doughnut.

So what can you do about it? Lots of things. You can read a summary of it here but that glosses over ‘bright spots’ which I think is one of the best ideas in the book. If you’re struggling with something, you think about what’s worked in the past, work out why and replicate that. So, say, if I was struggling to get on and finish a book (to pick a random example out of thin air *cough*) I could think about how I managed to finish writing Jessie. Maybe I went to Starbucks and made myself stay there until I was finished. And I could try that again and see if it worked. I know, it seems blindingly obvious, but sometimes, when you’re flailing (when I’m flailing…) you miss the obvious things.

In fact, all the steps are pretty simple and there’s even a one-page summary at the back of the book that I’m going to stick on the wall next to my desk. But I’m so glad I read the whole book – the real world examples are so interesting and inspiring – and I’m keen to read the Heaths’ next book, Made to Stick.