Entertaining, irreverent, deceptively wise—even if I do have to take it off the coffee table and stash it away before my mother comes to visit.

A fun book with advice that you can start implementing right away. Reading this was like sitting down with a close friend and having a refreshing vent session to get everything off your chest.

I appreciated the humorous view the author took with this book. I actually gave it to a couple of people I knew due to the frenzy, hectic lives they live. And the many times I just want to say, Calm the F*ck down!

I didn't finish this book. I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I will revisit it but the first pass wasn't for me.

This book caught me by the title and didn’t stop from there.

The author makes some great points and suggestions and some I have implemented into my daily routines.

You’ll also probably laugh a lot when you read this one—I did, which helps!

I have recently been battling anxiety and this book was straight forward and so helpful. It was like a good friend shaking the anxiety out of you! I highlighted full pages. If you suffer from
Anxiety read this book. If you love someone with anxiety read this book

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I did not finish this. I don't get it. Is this for Gen Z'ers? The writing style completely threw me off and it was so difficult to focus on the self-help message. Despite being someone who drops a curse word in every sentence, I did not find the humor in this book. It was also excessively wordy. Perhaps I'm old fashioned in thinking that there needs to be a difference between conversational language and written language (I also hate emojis,(gasp!)). Besides the writing style, the self-help part of the book did not provide any new or helpful insights. It was just the serenity prayer with some extra F-bombs.

Despite the profanity, Knight is an insightful author, who writes in an accessible manner and provides concrete, easy to follow tips. A great read, especially for those who normally avoid self help books.

I’m a big fan of Sarah Knight’s books and irreverent, sweary self-help approach. On the other hand, Calm the F*ck Down didn’t shed much light on my own struggles with anxiety. Although the book purports itself to be for people exactly like me, I didn’t glean much insight from it.

The book deals mainly with generalities and my main take-away from it is the need to alter my perceptions in the face of angst or crisis. In other words, examine the situation and ask myself how much of it is within my control, then act accordingly. If this sounds pretty basic, that’s because it is. Unfortunately, I wasn’t left with much of an impression of the book other than this. There’s also a Choose Your Own Adventure (Disaster) portion of the book that provides hypotheticals and possible solutions, but I found this section both tedious and repetitive and I skimmed a lot of it.

Overall, I was disappointed with this book, especially after loving Knight’s first book, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck. For people who have clinical anxiety, you’d probably be better off skipping this and seeing your therapist instead, as you likely won’t gain any new insight into how to better manage your condition. For casual readers of self-help and everyone else, you might find helpful information here.

Change what you can, accept what you can’t and be wise enough to know the difference. That's the core principle in Sarah Knight's Calm The F* Down. Tips and tricks abound for addressing anxiety and worry, the dreaded analysis paralysis. Sarah Knight writes conversationally, but sarcasm abounds. I very much enjoyed her style, but I can see it might not be everyone's cup of tea. I'm not sure just how much of what was covered was new, but I definitely enjoyed the experience. If nothing else it reminded me that "If this is the worst that happens....this is not that bad." I appreciated her humor and her candidness. 3.5
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

This was a helpful book. I’ll return to it again for future reference. There were some good tips on how to handle situations.

Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to read this book! I appreciate the kindness. <3

Calm the F*co Down is a great book that everyone should read. I will buy this as presents. Sarah K ight is a great writer.

This was the first book I've read by Sarah Knight. I have no prior history with the other books in the series, and "Calm the F*ck Down" was a good introduction for me. While I don't personally suffer from anxiety on a regular basis, the advice and tips given in the book are helpful, and I enjoyed Ms. Knight's sense of humor. I now want to read more of her books, and watch her TED talk.

3.5 overall-5 for hilariousness. A few good pearls inside, along with a great flowchart to refocus.I read DRC of this so I felt I missed some due to the inaccessibility within the DRC during the Choose Your Own Adventure section. Might be an 4 in final copy.

I have recently been reading a rash of self-help book and this title really stood out to me. The author makes several good points but I really didn't get a whole lot of this book, or not as much as I had hoped for.

Why this book? I am nothing if not anxiety-driven. Anxiety-riddled. Anxiety-plagued. You get the drift. After a lifetime of struggling with it, I finally went to therapy a couple years back, was diagnosed with Major Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and figured out how best to deal with it (for now; these nasty beasties transmogrify, and then new battle plans must be devised). While my depression ebbs and flows, my anxiety is a part of daily life. Medication helps a LOT, but it is not the end-all-be-all. Healthy coping mechanisms are an essential weapon in my arsenal, and I’m always on the lookout for something new to try.

This book appealed because of the snarky title. Recently, I saw a clip of Mila Kunis on a talk show, with a bottle of liquor in her hand. When she was offered a glass, she said “No I’m not a lady, I don’t need a glass,” and then she sips from the bottle and THAT is so my style. Kind of what I was expecting from this book.

Thoughts:

1. This book might be useful to those who are anxious people, but not necessarily clinical. Definitely not for anyone who has read anything about ways to cope with anxiety. Essentially, there is nothing new here. Just a different presentation. And you’d have to have thick skin to get anything out of this. Thick skin and anxiety don’t tend to go hand in hand. Just sayin’.
2. It wasn’t just snarky. It was pretty heavy-handed style-wise. At no point was I offended (that would take a LOT in terms of profanity, etc.), but it just got tiresome. At some point, it started to feel like shtick. So much so that the style distracted from the content.
3. The author is a fellow anxiety-sufferer but has zero credentials in mental health. Her “expertise” is limited to her own experience. These are tools that work for her and based on the fact that she has no training in the field, I’d guess they are techniques she learned from her own therapy, and has repackaged in her own unique style for the benefit of others. While I appreciate her personal experience and the attempt at delivering sound tools in a less dry package, it didn’t really work for me.
4. There were quite a few sections that started with caveats, along the lines of “I don’t mean to be critical or discount your experience, but…” Experience has taught me that anytime someone starts a sentence with a disclaimer like that, they are about to do exactly the thing they are saying they aren’t going to do. And the last thing people struggling with anxiety need is to feel criticized or have their feelings minimized.

This book was not for me. I’d be hard-pressed to recommend it because the tone and mood are unlikely to appeal to most readers - even those of us who enjoy snark and a bit of profanity, and it simply isn’t new territory. Truthfully, there were times when I was seriously pissed off. In fact, I’m finding the more I write about it, the less I like it…

I was worried this book would not be sensitive to most with anxiety, but I found it to be very close to how I experience anxiety, which is obviously not reflective of everyone, but to me it was. Great job!

Calm the F@ck Down: How to Control What You Can and Accept What You Can't So You Can Stop Freaking Out and Get On With Your Life by Sarah Knight is a self help book for those with too much anxiety in their lives. It is a no-f*cks-given guide to taming anxiety and taking control of your life. Do you spend more time worrying about problems than solving them? Do you let unexpected difficulties ruin your day and do "what ifs" keep you up at night? Sounds like you need to CALM THE F*CK DOWN. Just because things are falling apart doesn't mean YOU can't pull it together. Calm the F*ck Down explains:The Four Faces of Freaking Out--and their Flipsides How to accept what you can't control, Productive Helpful Effective Worrying (PHEW)The Three Principles of Dealing With It, and more.

Calm the F@ck Down is a down to earth, honest book that acknowledges the reality of both anxiety disorders and the situational anxiety. I like that the author not only recognizes the existence and validity of the anxiety readers might be struggling, but makes it clear that she has been there and not only understands what readers might be feeling but makes it clear that those emotions are real, and not something that ignoring or pretending that they do not exist will help. Knight has struggled with anxiety and found tools that work for her, and shares those tools, her experiences, and hope with readers that they can find tools that will work for them.

I really enjoyed the blunt and honest talk, and thought the regular reminders that she is not a doctor but is sharing what works for her in hopes it can help others with plenty of support for seeing a professional for help was well done and might give someone the encouragement to seek help if they need it. This balance of suggestions and support is pretty perfect. I also enjoyed the humor that is liberally sprinkled through the book, I find the ability to laugh at myself, and situations, to be helpful to me and it seems that Knight feels the same way. I think this book is a helpful and fun read for those that deal with anxiety (both capital A and lowercase, situation anxiety) to focus their energy and effort in productive ways.

I purchased all of the previous three workbooks for my adult children who are in their 20s. I think this book reads better for that age group than 40s and older.