EVERYTHING IS F*CKED

The popular blogger and author
delivers an entertaining and thought-provoking third book about the importance
of being hopeful in terrible times.

“We are a culture and a people in
need of hope,” writes Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive
Approach to Living a Good Life, 2016, etc.). With an appealing
combination of gritty humor and straightforward prose, the author floats the
idea of drawing strength and hope from a myriad of sources in order to tolerate
the “incomprehensibility of your existence.” He broadens and illuminates his
concepts through a series of hypothetical scenarios based in contemporary
reality. At the dark heart of Manson’s guide is the “Uncomfortable Truth,”
which reiterates our cosmic insignificance and the inevitability of death,
whether we blindly ignore or blissfully embrace it. The author establishes this
harsh sentiment early on, creating a firm foundation for examining the current
crisis of hope, how we got here, and what it means on a larger scale. Manson’s
referential text probes the heroism of Auschwitz infiltrator Witold Pilecki and
the work of Isaac Newton, Nietzsche, Einstein, and Immanuel Kant, as the author
explores the mechanics of how hope is created and maintained through self-control
and community. Though Manson takes many serpentine intellectual detours, his
dark-humored wit and blunt prose are both informative and engaging. He is at
his most convincing in his discussions about the fallibility of religious
beliefs, the modern world’s numerous shortcomings, deliberations over the “Feeling
Brain” versus the “Thinking Brain,” and the importance of striking a happy
medium between overindulging in and repressing emotions. Although we live in a
“couch-potato-pundit era of tweetstorms and outrage porn,” writes Manson, hope
springs eternal through the magic salves of self-awareness, rational thinking,
and even pain, which is “at the heart of all emotion.”

Clever and accessibly
conversational, Manson reminds us to chill out, not sweat the small stuff, and
keep hope for a better world alive.