Jason Clarke

First things first, I have to admit something; I’ve been a fan of Michael Hyatt, the CEO of the Thomas Nelson book publishing company, for at least 4 or 5 years. I first came across his writing on a blog called Working Smart, which is now defunct, but has migrated to his current personal blog. Michael is a very tech-savvy executive who gives reasoned advice about the best tech tools to use, how to handle management issues, and on a more personal side, how to nurture healthy relationships and stay in shape. Given that Thomas Nelson is one of the largest Christian book publishing houses, it’s no surprise that Michael also discusses spirituality on his blog. He’s sort of a one-stop shop for someone like me, given that he tends to touch on all the areas of life that I am interested in or have challenges in.

I was surprised and impressed when Hyatt announced that Thomas Nelson was starting a blogger’s book review project, wherein interested bloggers could apply to have a review copy of a book sent to them for free, in return for a review on their blog. This is an idea that is incredibly forward-thinking, and one that I doubt most other publishing companies would even consider. It was with excitement then that I signed up to review the first book that was released in this program, The Truth About You.

The Truth About You was written by Marcus Buckingham, and was touted as a fantastic self-help book that helps you to figure out what your strengths are, and how to leverage those strengths rather than waste your time trying to lift up your weaknesses. While I’m certainly intrigued by the concept, I found the book itself almost entirely unreadable. From what I can tell, it’s actually directed towards an adolescent readership, but it reads like it was intended for a pre-teen reading audience. The concepts in the book are fine, but as I’m reading it the entire time I feel as if I’m being spoken down to, and that the author is afraid of using any big words.

The idea of leveraging your strengths is one that surely would benefit students that are graduating high-school and are off to college or the job market, but I can’t honestly imagine a graduating high-school student reading this book without being put off by the tone.

I have to admit at this point that I couldn’t bring myself to finish the book. In fact, I didn’t even get half way through it. So it’s entirely possible that the tone shifts and the book becomes more palatable, but I didn’t have the patience to find out. I feel bad, because the book arrived in December and I’ve been meaning to write this review for months, but I really wanted to finish the book to give it a proper review. Instead, I can only say that this book certainly was not for me.

I’m interested to find out whether the fact that this book was aimed at adolescents caused it to be written in such an unpleasant tone, or if it’s simply Buckingham’s style that doesn’t work for me.