Linus Jonkman

I’ve known I’m introvert in the most basic of terms (social activities cost me energy, whereas solitude gives me energy) for a while, and have been wanting to learn more about it. However, most books on the subject seem to deal with an American reality, and as the whole Swedish national character seems to be introvert from that viewpoint, I have felt it might give me a wrong image. Therefor, I have been having an eye on Jonkman’s book since it came out, and picked it up as soon as it was available in paperback.

Most of the stuff in here is stuff I already kind of have figured out for myself, but it’s pretty interesting to see it put into words. And there are also some new thoughts in here, for instance giving me new insight to my burnout a couple of years back (which I never connected with extrovert tasks becoming more and more dominant in my workday with too little alone time to reload, at the time) and also some good ideas about parenting. Our six year old is obviously dominantly introvert, while our three year old is very extrovert, and we need to think about that.

Unfortunately, while the content is good, the execution is kind of weak. Jonkman is often funny, occasionally hilarious, and the book has lots of snappy oneliners like ”I google ’extrovert’ and find job ads, I google ’introvert’ and find articles about Anders Behring Breivik”. But the book is full of annoying repetition. Also, he generalises and draws conclusions on trends from examples in popular culture that just seem random. Even at only 240 pages, it feels at least 50 pages is fluff. And while he claims to want to show how extrovert and introvert traits complete each other, what comes across is often a ”pro-introvert” agenda of sorts, which feels more conceited than anything. Glad I read this, will surely come back to it for reference, but as a *book* it’s sub par.… (mer)