Stuck: Why We Can't (Or Won't) Move On
Written by Anneli Rufus
Narrated by Susanna Burney
3/5
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About this audiobook
In Stuck, Anneli Rufus identifies a rather striking social trend: many people are stuck.
Be it in the wrong relationship, the wrong town, or with the wrong friends, many of them even say they want to make a change but...somehow...never get the job done.
Blending personal anecdote, interviews, and cultural criticism, Stuck is a wise and passionate exploration of the dreams we hold dearest ourselves -and the road to actually achieving them.
Tracing the many ways in which American culture conspires to keep us stalled, Rufus delivers a long-awaited diagnosis for our day and age. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel (at least for some): Rufus also tells the stories of people who managed to become unstuck or of others who, after much reflection, decided that where they are is best.
After all, she says: "What looks to you like paralysis, looks perhaps to another like passion. What looks to you like a rut, others might say is true absorption in a topic, a relationship, a career, a pursuit, a place. What looks to you like boredom, others call commitment. Even contentment."
A rare glimpse into what truly motivates - or doesn't motivate us - Stuck inspires readers to take a look at themselves in an entirely new light.
©2009 Anneli Rufus; (P)2009 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.
Anneli Rufus
Native Californian Anneli Rufus is the author of several successful travel guides, including Weird Europe for St. Martin's Press, and America Off the Wall: The West Coast. She lives in Berkeley, California.
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Reviews for Stuck
27 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5What a weird book. Well, the first 100 pages anyway, that’s where I stopped.Basically it’s the comments section of any internet website. Ranting nearly incomprehensibly about everything under the sun, she states near the beginning that she’s really immature and feels like she never moved past 12 years old, and is very fearful. That pretty much sets the tone of the book.Not what I was expecting, or wanted.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I don't want to waste 20 hours on history lessons and points expounded upon (for what feel like the author's desire to be clever with words or trying to hit a page minimum), before even arriving at any advice.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I wanted to like this book way more than I did. I had no problem with her writing or her adding people's individual stories in between. I had a problem with how she thinks, also a big problem I had when I read her book on saints. She can come across as very snarky, self-righteous and rude.
As a person with a 34 year relentless eating disorder, I will NOT allow her to label me as someone with 'bad habits '. I have had and continue to have a team of mental health workers who have not made any progress with it, and I graduated from a 5 month eating disorder program here in NY only to leave heavier than when I entered. I also have OCD and chronic insomnia. These are illnesses/disorders/afflictions and not bad habits. So if that is her stance, we have to part ways.
Also she is a self acknowledged cheapskate, something I am not and abhor. I gravitate generosity.
She is against living with your parents beyond the age of 20 or so, yet, how many college graduates out there find the only job waiting for them is pushing a broom ?? I have a Master's degree and it never mattered on bit. I am on SS disability now, but on my last job for the gov't in 2007 I only made $ 44,000. NY rents start at about $ 1,500 a month, then with the light bill, gas bill, phone bill, laundry, food and carfare, how can you manage ??? So she blames young people for wasting money, but if you make $ 35,000 on your first job out of school, the only place you can live for that kind of money is someone's closet for $ 100 a week.
I no longer like this author - I have read 3 of her books, I think I will toss ' Party of One ', I don't think I can deal with her anymore. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I picked this book up while perusing the "last chance" section at Barnes and Noble. It is not a self-help book, it's a treatise on how and why we're stuck in various arenas of our lives- job, relationships, bad habits, etc. Well-researched and easy to read, a lot of what Rufus has to say makes sense. One of the sections I found very interesting was about the impact capitalism (and it's opposites) have had on monogamy. As the author says, "Companies with goods and services to sell hate happy couples." If we are happy and feeling content with our lives, we don't need anything else to fill the void. I feel, however, she oversimplified a few things and her bias shows. The chapter on trauma, and how our current society has made superstars of victims, feels a little whiney. And she acknowledges her own issues, which sheds light on why it felt that way. She also disparages therapy a bit, which I might take personally ;)It's a lot of good food for thought. I guess I wish the book offered some hope for getting unstuck, which was hinted at in the introduction, but didn't surface anywhere else.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I had to force myself to finish this one. The premise is ok. It is kind of like a journal/blog in which the author starts out with examination of her own obsessions, and then enlarges the discussion to include society. The writing style bothered me. Too much reliance on the technique of using single lines, or words as counterpoints. Overused. Irritating.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There are lots of interesting things in this book -things that really made me stop and think about my life and the choices I make. My biggest problem with this book was the tone. At times it was so bitter that it was unpalatable. But I wholeheartedly agree with many of Ms. Rufus' observations and conclusions.