ARA Review by nedjacob of In It Together

[nedjacob]

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, In It Together.]

---

2 out of 5 stars

---

Share This Review

---

2/5

This book is a discussion of the author's worldview. It is religious, spiritual, and philosophical, trying to be something more like the middle word, but leaning towards the first. He has very strong opinions about God that do not have the rationalism behind them that he thinks. In fact some of the philosophers he quotes believed in God in a very different way from him, undermining his arguments. Paradoxically the existence of the book itself minimizes some of what is said within it, and the pretense of an unbiased observer of life reeks of self righteousness. Somewhere in the middle the author loses his authority as life coach. This is heavy handed preaching.

The author is biting off more than he can chew, a complete life philosophy in a single book. He covers religion, and relationships, and inner conflict, all in a very summative and superficial way. Nothing in this book have we not heard before. It is a Tik-Tok version, accessible by skimming, and feeling like it could have been written by any adherent to a number of Eastern religions and philosophies. Why should we listen to this author in particular? This is not to say the author is wrong in all that he says -- mostly he is right. But the right and wrong of it is irrelevant, because it is hard to care anymore than we do about a Tik-Tok or Instagram clip, containing solid reminders for how to live our lives, but forgotten seconds later.

A relative strength of the book is its organization. The author tells exactly what he tries to do in the book in a surprisingly direct way. He is trying to convert others to his philosophies by telling us what our problem is, describing our problems in greater detail, and finally offering us solutions. The book would have worked better if it was structured in the reverse, because the problems are implicitly understood by the solutions. The best way to use the book would be to fast forward and read the solutions. In non-fiction, solutions are far more interesting than problems.

***
View In It Together on Bookshelves