Funny, clever and insightful

Ruby Wax is a charmer, she’s sharp witted and super clever. She’s the aunt you wish you had. By weaving psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness into compelling personal stories she makes this book an all round winner.

Get onto it!

Great read

I really enjoyed this book, the 3 perspectives, and strategies for mindful living and self acceptance

Fantastic book. if you want your life to change.

If you want your life to change for the better, this book is a must read. Thank you Ruby Wax.

Terrific: info packed, funny, on my wavelength

Brilliant! Insights into my own brain and the healing it needs post- acquired brain injury.

Pretty good!

Pretty good book! It's not highly intellectual but therefore actually easier to follow and more approachable to the average reader or the reader with ADHD who gets easily distracted therefore struggles to follow complex wording and heavy scientific jargon. (I'll go look up the word and then the Internet has me - there's no coming back!) Also, a narrator with a dynamic personality such as Ruby Wax's (yes that definitely shines through even just in audio!), holds my attention better too, despite her very STRONG American accent which I kind of found grating sometimes. Sorry! But it's definitely a voice that is easy to focus on! 😂 I also liked her little 'my story's'. I thought they were kinda cheesy at first but I quickly realized how wrong I was and that they were actually great little tid bits to help the reader relate neuroscience and mindfulness to real life examples.
It was also a great idea to have written the book the the input of both a neuroscience, and a Buddhist monk in each chapter. People might think these disciplines are worlds apart but they actually both study the same thing and both of their beliefs are based from scientific experiments. Not many people actually know what Buddhism is about but Buddha basically wanted to study consciousness so he could figure out how to end suffering and improve happiness. And the way he went about doing this was through doing neuroscience experiments/experiments with consciousness. He then wrote many books to pass on his findings to others - all 87,000 conclusions to his 87,000 hypotheses through 87,000 experiments!

Extradinary humility

Ruby, you are a star. Not only have you shown great humility sharing your own painful experiences, but you have done so whilst balancing a wonderful trifecta of story tellers. Keeping it real and keeping it amusing..loved it.

Disappointed

This book was confusing. I have no clue how the title is meant to relate to the actual content and felt this was more a biography on ruby wax or her opinion on how to live that was not at all relevant to mindfulness or compassion. I found Ruby’s attempts at humour frustrating as they diverged hugely from the intended content of the book. I felt the same book could have been written a quarter of the size and it would still be ‘beating around the bush’. I didn’t like the conversational style of writing with the neuroscientist and the monk and ruby and personally found ruby difficult to continue to
listen to as she goes on at length about her own life or puts others down (her co-writers, therapists, etc). I think the gems of the book were the neuroscientist and monks input but that ruby was like the unwanted comedian of the book.
Nothing personal against ruby but I felt this book was awful. There are much better books out there that are way better written and with better content. A personal favourite: ‘why Buddhism is true’.
This book might be good for some but it definitely wasn’t good for me. Unfortunately, I’ll be returning it.

Annoying

I found the author to be very irritating. Her attempt at humour was not amusing and her attitude condescending. I could not finish it.

1 person found this helpful

excellent book.

gives you great insight into the human condition. makes me feel im not alone. other people suffer and have similiar emotions, thoughts and feelings