MAKE YOUR BED is one of those strange titles that makes one quickThis is NOT a book on how to make your beds.
"Start Your Day with a Task Complete"
MAKE YOUR BED is one of those strange titles that makes one quickly become curious about what's inside. At least that's what happened with me. Upon noticing this book, I remembered coming across the importance of 'making the bed' in Duhigg's Power of Habit, where he explains how a such a simple task, when complemented with a set of other similarly simple yet consistent tasks, could alter one's behavior through the day. However, the author of this book does not explore such a complex phenomenon. On the contrary, McRaven uses the example of making the bed, to begin an interesting series of events a soldier is expected to master during his field training.
"Making my bed correctly was not going to be an opportunity for praise. It was expected of me. It was my first task of the say, and doing it right was important. It demonstrated my discipline. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task."
This is a very quick read, which wouldn't take most readers more than a couple of hours. The author has divided the contents to a series of chapters according to various training elements related to a Navy SEAL, from entry to graduation, though not in a single continuous timeline. I did find most of the field experiences interesting since I had very little background the aforementioned program. However, whether this books is for you or not, is completely dependent on two things in my opinion. If you're a hardcore non-fiction reader, already familiar with a lot of self-improvement books, there's very little new to be found here. Secondly, if you're a connoisseur in aspects of military training already, again this might not be the book for you. However, if you're neither of these, this quick read could provide a good, and simple, framework to organize your life. Rounding up what felt like a 3.5-stars to 4.
"The common people and the great men and women are all defined by how they deal with life's unfairness: Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Malala Yousafzai, and-Moki Martin."
"I sometimes fell short of being the best, but I never fell short of giving it my best."
Domestic Violence-of any kind-is never easy to read about or listen to, without developing a sever abhorren"There is so much more to what we see!"
Domestic Violence-of any kind-is never easy to read about or listen to, without developing a sever abhorrence toward all the wrongdoers involved, whether the events are fictional or not. Even with countless social security frameworks put in place nowadays, it is terrifying that a significant percentage of families having to go through such abominable experiences. And when you consider that it is probable, only a fraction of the actual events are being reported, this subject becomes even more important. I applaud the author's selection of this theme, which, I'm certain, would help many readers, not just to empathize, but to identify such victims and help, at least in the smallest way, to remedy such situations.
"The human mind thinks a myriad of thoughts."
I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the author's writing was, especially with this being her first book, and with English probably not being her first language. She did use a simple language, but it felt quite eloquent, making the reading experience better. Aside from domestic violence, book also addresses a variety of other vital factors from patriarchal nature of Indian families, shortcomings of the education system to privations encountered by many due to economical constraints. This book provided me with a great opportunity to empathize with such issues from the author's unique perspective. But the content does not even stop there: She even superimposed a completely different plotline with some mystery and adventure elements to break the monotony in story progression.
However, there were certain things that compelled me to stick with a 3-star rating. Throughout the book, I found the narrative not feeling very personal. May be if a first person narrative had been used, it would've been a little better. But even with the domestic conflicts already having a near first person perspective, there was a lack of congruence to maintain a steady flow. For me, the first reason was the adventure, and mystery elements stealing the spotlight away from originally intended theme. Every now and then you move to a segment on protagonist's inner battles due to home conflicts, only to return to something else immediately. The second main reason lies with the characters. Sanjana's character came a bit too ambitious to my liking. For the first half of the story, I actually thought Kriti's story was more emotional, and very personal. Also, I believe the number of characters were way too many for a book like this, making the story unnecessarily long.
"How easily these childhood fears took away the true essence of peaceful living."
Something else I found quite odd was the book's too broad intended audience. The first half felt more like a children's book, with Sanjana's out-of-home story feeling something like a female Tom Sawyer version (not quite that mischievous, but certainly inquisitive) where as the latter half aimed for a relatively mature audience, with some complex reformation attempts from Sanjana as a medical professional. But overall, I felt like the majority of the book did not move around title of the story. However, if you do divide the book based on these different plot-lines, I think there are two or three complete, and interesting stories overlapped on each other. But they were quite distinct from each other, which made the overlapped story somewhat incongruous.
But when you consider that this is a debut novel, it is quite good. If there's one thing that many author's are guilty of with their first books is, being a bit too ambitious with the lead characters, trying to pour every potential good quality to them, making the portrayal unrealistic. But if the rest is any indication, the author is off to a great start with this book.
"You must let your thoughts take wings and curl out of the little, sleeping holes of your mind."
*Thank you Nilanjana Haldar for providing a copy of the book for an unbiased review*...more
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