Katrina Haffner's Reviews > You Are a Badass

Ah, the book that is practically touted as the Bible of inspiration and self-improvement. I almost feel bad for giving it only two stars.

My mom highly recommended it to me and let me borrow her copy. I trudged through the first few chapters, thinking, "Why is this so difficult to get through? Why am I highly indifferent to it?" When talking with my mom about it, she thought it was Sincero's casual style of writing that was getting to me. I considered that, but dismissed it. So what was it?

After months of telling myself, "A few more pages tonight...", I finally finished it, and I realized why I wasn't into it:

1) This is all basically stuff I know, whether through my short life experience or reading about it in some other capacity (I've read a lot of women and teen magazines). Throughout the book, I was like, "Of course," "Duh," "Why wouldn't you do that...?" This is not to say I'm living my dream life (getting there...) or am the epitome of someone who has their life completely on track (anxiety sure has a way of causing derailments). I've never really had a second thought about going against the grain when it comes to what I want to achieve in life (it's a necessity), and I feel that the majority of this book is trying to convince the reader to ignore the people who hold them back by saying "It's risky" or "You'll never be that great."

2) Going off of #1, this came off as 101 for me, while I probably need something in the 200 or 300 levels. Think about what you studied in college or know a lot about. Repetition for learning is good, but imagine taking an introductory course of the subject you already know so well and having it "drilled" into your head, yet it's already been in your head for years.

I do not think You Are a Badass is bad by any means. As Goodreads puts it, I think it's just "okay". Any other problems I have with the book are merely nitpicks that don't affect the rating and are things I think aren't even worth mentioning in this review.

What I did enjoy were the quotes, both Sincero's own words about certain topics and quotes she included from other people. She also has a nice collection of resources to check out. I probably would have enjoyed a condensed version better - a nice refresher and motivator on how to achieve what I want without the long-winded explanations.

At the very least, I'm going to check out You Are a Badass at Making Money since my mom also lent that book to me. If I think that's worth at least three stars, I'll probably check out more of her books.

If you are someone who constantly makes excuses for why you're not living your dream life or are being held back by your friends and family (or the opinions of other people matter too much to you), this might be a good read for you. This might also be a nice gift to a teenager, but remember to live up to what the book preaches since they'll look up to you as a role model, if they haven't done so already.

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