I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power

Brene Brown is brilliant and i LOVE this book. But having heard her speak, and knowing her drawl and cadences made the narration feel somewhat jarring. It would have been fabulous is Dr. Brown had done the narration, but really, when would she have had the time? That said, this is one of her most wonderful writings and I would highly recommend it!

I'm sure this book has a lot to offer to most women; unfortunately not so much for me. Most of the book focuses on motherhood and parenting.. I don't have children, so could not relate a good deal of the time and lost interest.

I thouroughly enjoyed Brené Brown's TED talks on vulnerability and shame; I had hoped that this book would be an expansion on those discussions by the author.
This book contains a lot of useful information and interesting anecdotes regarding overcoming shame, embracing reality, and having compassion for oneself and others. However, it is not written in a style that works well with audio. It contains many parts that I would just skim in a print book; it has reader exercises that would be more useful in a visual format; and there are parts that I would like to mark, think about, and come back to (not ealily done in this audio format).
A critique of the material is that it seems to focus primarily on women like Brown, herself: white, educated, mid-upper income, etc. Though there is a nod here and there to people who are not in those categories, it is pretty clear that this book does not do much to address the broader experience of people outside Brown's comfort zone. Then again, the audience that actually buys self-help books like this is primarily comprised of women, white, educated, mid-upper income, etc. (including me).

The content is great. The person reading it was difficult to follow unless I was going along with the book. It was hard to tell when she was reading the "stories" of the people the author worked with, and when it was content from the book.

There is so much information that is helpful that it is impossible to say which is the most memorable moments. Perhaps the author's experience of the phone interview for a research grant, with a screaming infant with explosive poop, lactating breasts, and holding back her own diarrhea was pretty memorable.

Again, the person reading seemed to be trying to relate the dramatic effect of the content, but it wound up detracting from the information for me. There was a sense of a lack of continuity.

Shame effects many areas of one's life. Handling shame well in one area does not necessarily mean that someone does so in all areas of their life.

Looking forward to hearing the author speak in Houston on September 12th, 2012.

Probably not. It seemed a bit "fictional" with most examples having a happily ever after.

Maybe varied the interviewees in the book. It seemed everyone was able to resolve their problems effortlessly.

Yes, it read like a fictional book.

No

No. I would recommend reading this book over listening to it. The performance verges on annoying and I would've preferred to scan some sections throughout the book.

Brenee's research into shame and the accompanying insights are fascinating and deeply helpful. She draws on countless interviews to populate her data with strong evidence.

Repetitious and not subtle.

No.

I loved this book very much, it helped me a lot. It's not easy to read book, because of the main subject of the book - shame, you know.. Very deep and detailed book about this not so comfortable subject. In this book you will find many personal stories about shaming, judgement etc, and practic ways how to deal with those things best. As the title of the book says, you begin to understand that it's actually universal thing and you are NOT THE ONLY ONE handling this issues - for me it vas very relieving.. The author, Brene is AMAZING - human, touching and professional, some stories in this book are her personal experiences. One thing you may take into consideration, this book in my opinion mostly written for women, because all the stories and the examples are about women...

I will most certainly listen again for the insight and information. But the narration should've been done by the author.

The story-like writing style

She did fine; I've just heard the author in interviews and I prefer the timbre of her voice.

Towards the end the author begins discussing her new research with men. While women seem to be caught in a web she finds that men are put in a box and punished when they try to escape. It reminded me of when my little brother started getting teased and bullied when he got too old (7 or 8 years old) not to stay in the box. Broke my heart again.