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The best review on this book I've read!

Brilliant!

Fantastic and hilarious!

This review is a masterpiece.

If only the book were as good as this review!

sounds like an accurate world view

I heartily ooncur! I found this book to be highly INSULTING to the reader. Far from being motivating, it actually irritates and even ANGERS the reader.

Judging from most of the other reviews I see here, I'm not the only one who was entirely put off by this book. In fact, I never would have read it on my own. It was practically FORCED upon me by a supervisor. (See my review.) Needless to say, said supervisor was a nasty tyrant, only loved by her "pets". Thankfully, she retired last year!!

Thank you for such a hilarious, perfectly satirical review!!

Last company I worked at called a department of about 75 people to a meeting. As they were entering the room they were handed a copy of this book. The meeting was to tell them that their jobs were being eliminated. Yeah, it was THAT awful of a company.

Oh, that is just disgusting! So Dilbert! Thanks for sharing.

Brilliant review

Holy cow! This was the most refreshing review I have ever read of a book. I read this book when it first came out and it was just recommended to me by a close friend.

Awesome review! And very insightful :)

So glad it's that obvious. Reading it, I was thinking, "can people really not see right through this bs?" and felt horrified. My child's school, inexplicably, is requiring this for summer reading. For middle school. Wtf? I'm gonna suggest "Brightsided" as an antidote.

Hannah wrote: "So glad it's that obvious. Reading it, I was thinking, "can people really not see right through this bs?" and felt horrified. My child's school, inexplicably, is requiring this for summer reading. ..."

Hannah wrote: "So glad it's that obvious. Reading it, I was thinking, "can people really not see right through this bs?" and felt horrified. My child's school, inexplicably, is requiring this for summer reading. ..."

I would suggest a conversation with the school principal about a lesson in critical thinking to accompany this requirement. Oy! Middle School?? That's nine through eleven-year-olds, right? Criminy! We start indoctrinating 'em young, don't we? "Brightsided" is a book I haven't read yet. I'll have to put it on my list!

Excellent review!

Awesome review! This book is such business propaganda. I wonder what poor souls out there can't see this thinly veiled threat of accept our corp changes or you're outta here.

I agree that the book is awful. But if that was what they meant they wouldn't have had to make up the silly allegory. The cheese could be a relationship, it could be your health, it could be your youth. The change could be a breakup, an illness or onset of disability, old age, retirement. It could apply to anything.

If they hadn't made up the silly allegory, nobody in a million years would have read it. And then the fifty pages before and after about how terrific this stupid allegory is, you know, to make it more than twelve pages long. Sure, you can apply rats in a maze to any situation. You can apply the Philadelphia Eagles football diagrams for next week's game to anything, for that matter. But this book is about employees. That's why the major reason for the book taking off like it did was all the HR departments buying it and forcing their underlings to read it.

haha! one of the best reviews!

Kate--I came up with an alternative to this book:

"The seminar was based on the bestselling business book “Waiting for John Galt��, an inspirational tale of two caged gerbils. After being harmfully lulled into lethargy by a regular feeding regimen, one fateful morning the two gerbils, Agamemnon and Achilles, awaken to find there is no food in their feeder. As soon as Agamemnon sees that the food is missing, he gets up on the wheel and starts running as fast as he can, thinking that the faster he runs the more likely food will rain down from the heavens. The other gerbil, Achilles, just lounges in the cage watching Agamemnon on the wheel, sniffing at the straw, murmurs something about John Galt, and goes back to sleep. [Later] when food appears, Agamemnon runs to the feeder and gorges himself. When Achilles finally gets up and approaches the feeder for a snack, Agamemnon starts biting him and yelling that he, Agamemnon, has done all the work, and that if Achilles wants some food he had better get on the damn wheel and start running.
“So you see,�� the lecturer concluded, “the lesson here is just like those two mice in the maze we talked about earlier. You can’t wait around for John Galt. If you want to accomplish something, if you want to put food on the table, you need to get to work. You can’t just sit around and mope. You need to get yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.��

needless to say, I hated the book and loved your review.

Thanks for that! I have to read this (and take a quiz on it!) for class, and it is making my blood boil!!!!

Courtney wrote: "Thanks for that! I have to read this (and take a quiz on it!) for class, and it is making my blood boil!!!!"

Uuhhggghhh!!! You poor thing! For a class??? Wow!

Hannah wrote: "So glad it's that obvious. Reading it, I was thinking, "can people really not see right through this bs?" and felt horrified. My child's school, inexplicably, is requiring this for summer reading. ..."

May I suggest Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America instead by the same author as Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America? ;-)

My least favorite part was when they were going ooooon and ooooon about how it was wrong to think they were entitled to benefits when the cheese vanished. o_O No, food stamps are ridiculous, go get a job motherfuckers! Ughhhhhhhh.

I hear ya, Dana. I mean, really. Food stamps? Why don't the poor simply eat dirt? (written with snark, of course)

Kate wrote: "I hear ya, Dana. I mean, really. Food stamps? Why don't the poor simply eat dirt? (written with snark, of course)"

Yeah, exactly. Finally what I decided to take away from the parable is that someone moved MY cheese: they moved the good books and I was left with this stupid little moldy one. Sooooo I ordered more from the library. So ha.

Dana wrote: "My least favorite part was when they were going ooooon and ooooon about how it was wrong to think they were entitled to benefits when the cheese vanished. o_O No, food stamps are ridiculous, go get..."

Yes, isn't it rich to hear the same people who think they're entitled to a tax break for their three-martini lunch and for shipping jobs to China go on and on about how entitled the poor feel themselves to be?

Wait how do read I keep pressing I want to read

Is it like some one has moved the cheese or some thing

Hi I'm holly the one who read this boo k thank you for talking about the block

OMG this is hilarious lmao

Oh, NOW you guys have reminded me...

What happens when your employer moves the cheese to Thailand but offers to send you there for 60 days to train your cheap overseas foreign labor replacements Who will be working a corporate sweatshop with Reinhard Heydrich breathing down their necks??

Do you follow the cheese, thinking you'll be able to re-cheese later, or object on moral grounds and tell them to SHOVE the cheese, or what?

I mean, I'm just asking (Rhetorically of course since I can't ask the genius moral authority AUTHOR himself)

Duane I think that in theory your cheese moved ages ago.
The problem with the book is how on earth are you supposed to know if the cheese is about to be moved. Sometimes it's obvious, like if you were selling CDs 10 years ago you should have realized you needed to expand or get into a different business. Or maybe your partner has been selling your stuff to buy crack. You should have realized you needed to break up before s/he used your kidney as collateral. But sometimes it's not obvious at all.

And what about if you know the cheese is going to be moved in the coming year or decade but you can't find another cheese.. I mean job.. I mean.. I don't know what I mean. The book is about as useful as hindsight.

I'd probably take the Thailand holiday if it was me and bring some presents for the people who are taking over my job, since its not their fault. I wonder what's hard to get in Thailand.. beef jerky? I think that's only in the US.

I'm sure it's always the employer giving this book to the employees.

best review ever!

Yeeeessssssss

I’ve never seen such hatred for a book.

Yeah, but is it the book, the author, or the cheese that's getting hated on??

AnD...

There could be more to this than meets the eye... What if "Cheese" is actually a "Code Word" for something *much* more Sinister??

Omg LOL

This review is hilarious!

Fantastic review. Very clever :-)

Good point, but I think the point is that these big companies do move the cheese. It’s a fact of life. Regardless if we think it’s fair, you can either choose to wallow and be bitter or you can choose to find a cheese that is more to your taste—like working for a local employer who values their employees, or starting your own business, or even retraining (if needed) and joining the fight to help take down some of these unethical companies. I didn’t interpret the message to be “let unethical corporations take advantage of you and get over it.�� I interpreted it quite the opposite, it just depends on what your cheese is. The book is really simplistic and open ended, so you can definitely interpret it different ways. Just sharing my 2 cents that might slightly improve the book’s message to you.

accurate *golf clap*

you sound like Ham

Loved your review. I also had to read this as corporate propaganda. They want you to believe you have two choice adapt or quit. In reality if you believe you only have two options you are already brainwashed.

exactly how i felt reading it, calling the people "entitled" for wanting "cheese" after all that running around just sounded insane.

Hmmmm I wonder which character you are?

Jesus. A political book about mice and cheese. We're doomed.

Wow. This book is just one long metaphor about modern society.