I had pretty high hopes for this book, and I have to admit that they didn't all get met.  But this is a solid book on its own, even if it didn't fulfill my every expectation.  Subtitled "How Positive Thinking is Undermining America," it only partly made this case.  I wanted so much more!

This book breaks down into three basic parts.  The first part is an expansion on Ehrenreich's inimitable essay, "Welcome to Cancerland."  This essay is one of my favorite works of short non-fiction writing, and has been for many years.  I keep a link to it handy, and pass it out whenever it's even remotely appropriate.

Unfortunately, I think the article's strengths are lost by the expansion that happens for Bright-Sided.  The original essay was a crisp, tart denouncement of cancer's "pink ribbon culture," of victim blaming, and of our strange insistence on overlooking the known causes of breast cancer (corporate pollution).  The version which appears in the book is… not quite that.

I'm torn between thinking that it's good Ehrenreich's essay and views are reaching a larger audience, because I've never met anyone who's read "Welcome to Cancerland," and that is a damned shame.  And thinking that it's terrible that such a fate should befall such an amazing essay.

The middle portion of the book is a history of the positive thinking movement in America, and a look at all the big players.  This was interesting enough, I suppose, but it didn't give me too much new information.  I suppose that a lot of people aren't as well-read (read, "subjected to") on the topic, so it's good to set the stage.  

Ehrenreich may also have felt that there was a need to respect the laws of habeas corpus before launching into her attack.  Frankly I was hoping for a whole entire book on the attack, with none of the preliminaries.  But I recognize that I am not the sole audience for non-fiction books.

Along the way in this section, Ehrenreich picks up a lot of interesting things and drops them almost immediately.  I found myself several times thinking, "Wait, back up!"  

For example, she notes that the victims of hysteria and nervous/fainting disorders in the late 19th century were almost exclusively members of a class which was marked by a "lack of competition."  Middle-class women who weren't allowed to work or do anything productive, for example, and the clergy.  

Wait, back up!  

I wanted a little more digging into this, and perhaps expanding that conclusion out to their modern disease equivalents.  Maybe Ehrenreich didn't want to go there.  I can respect that, but still!  

In another case, she notes that all this motivational crap is largely driven by the sales industry.  Which is patently obvious once she points it out, but leads to the inevitable question "Why?"

The third and final section was just what I was looking for.  A condemnation of "the power of positive thinking," including a fairly detailed analysis for how "heedless positivity" led to the financial collapse, from the overly optimistic executives at Countrywide to the average American family's debt and overspending habits.  

This section seemed far too brief, but something so delicious often is.