Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

Atlas of the Heart was a Goodreads Choice recommendation lauded for delving into the language of the human experience. It is an interesting linguistic examination of emotional terms that seeks clarity to what is a highly subjective and surprisingly complicated subject.

First, a quick comment on expectations heading in: The book is technically 275 pages but a lot of those pages are graphics or have giant quotes dominating the whole page. Combined with huge margins and I'd say this book is actually only 80-100 regular pages at the most. I bought the hardcover version, which was $30. I found later there was a paperback version available for around $18-$20. That is a pretty high price point for such a small amount of content.

In addition, the book is not particularly original. The author, Brené Brown, uses many quotations from her other books. There are also quotations from the works of others in her field. In other words, some of the content is not unique to this particular book. At times, it feels more like a summation of all her prior works and study in the field of language and psychology.

Having said that, a number of chapters were informative and compelling. A few will make you think a lot about how you process emotions. I also appreciated the commitment to relying on science-based sources of data rather than being a lecture or commentary from the author. It is obviously a realm dependent on qualitative data but it is a little more valuable than someone, even a psychotherapist, just giving their own view based on solely anecdotes.

Some feelings don't require experts to explain them to us. This book is at its best when it gets into the nuances, and in areas that the reader is not as familiar with or in touch with. For each reader, the most informative sections will be different.

The author's perspective is academic largely but also elitist, with some anecdotes and statements seemingly to come from "first world problems." These portions were more difficult to relate to as a reader.

One notable section included an anecdote concerning "belonging" and specifically cultural belonging. I understood the feeling and her definition but the discussion was a little confusing as was the anecdote. The story came from a young woman describing the challenges of coming to the US from Ecuador and being undocumented, but then the discussion shifted to living in a country and community with a "lack of diversity."

Setting aside that the woman and her family chose said communities then proceed to critique them on such terms, it is hard to see cultural belonging arising from living in a community with an acceptable or sufficient amount of diversity.

Unless, the term is being used colloquially to mean "less white people and more people like me." Since the book is about precision in language, it makes sense to use the proper definition of diversity, which means the state or fact of being diverse, as in: variety, of a different kind...

Given that Atlas of the Heart is a short work and includes content from other books, it is better to buy it in a cheaper format and to manage expectations. There are several thought-provoking chapters and it is certainly worth the read. It is a fascinating subject and the author’s expertise is immediately evident. In fact, I’d recommend starting with this book before reading her prior works. This book is an excellent overview of the subject and provides plenty of citations and recommended reading to dig deeper into specific subtopics.