Amanda Montell has done it again. She is my auto-read author. Here is yet another one of her books that I will rave about to everyone.

Montell explores different cognitive biases, and how they affect us in today’s social media centered world. Every single chapter felt relatable.

I love how much of her personal story is in this book, more than in her other works. I got an insight into her life, and her own connections made the piece even more impactful.

I honestly love pop science books! Let’s make knowledge accessible and fun and interesting for everyone!

Ever wonder why conspiracy theories and vaccine denialism increased when the United States was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Or maybe you are curious about the rise of Instagram and Tik Tok healers and wellness specialists ready to help you manifest dreams, attract wealth, or direct the flow of feminine light for a small membership fee (or donation)?

Linguist, podcast host (Sounds Like a Cult), and writer Amanda Montell explores contempory cognitive biases in her newest non-fiction tome "The Art of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Irrationality" (One Signal, 2024).

Thorough research, personal anecdotes, and deft explanations of why we do the wacky, often unexplainable things we do lay the stage for Montell. But her sharp wit and usage of pop culture icons (Taylor Swift, Betty Crocker, IKEA) is the icing on the instant gratification reading cake!!

Readers of Angela Duckworth's Grit, Susan Cain's Quiet, or any of Daniel Kannehman's, Daniel Ariely's, or Stephen J. Dubner's books on behavioral economics will enjoy the "The Art of Magical Overthinking."

Thank you to Amanda Montell, One Signal, and NetGalley for the eARC.

I really enjoyed this fascinating and well researched book! It was so interesting to see how much of a role different biases play out in our everyday work from pop stars to our own level of confidence. While I appreciated the opportunity to read an advanced copy, I will definitely have to purchase a final copy for a re-read in the future. Loved this reading experience.

I loved this book so much. I’m a huge fan of Amanda’s podcast and previous writings but this might be my favorite of her titles! This is perfect for believer, skeptics and anyone who finds theirselves somewhere in between.

Thank you to the publisher and author for a chance to review this title in exchange for my honest opinion!

Book Review! ⭐The Age of Magical Overthinking ⭐

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre:
Self help
Non fiction

Read if you like:
Overthinking
Cults and cult like relationships
Books that call you out and make you laugh

Synopsis:
In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “Halo effect” cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger than life celebrities, to how the “Sunk Cost Fallacy” can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.

Review:
I enjoyed this book! It's a collection of essays about different cognitive bias that we deal with in the modern age. Some of my favorite things that were discussed in this book were manifestation, toxic/cult like relationships, sunk cost fallacy, and our unhealthy relationship with online celebrities. This book felt like a fun mix between a memoir and a collection of essays. I enjoyed how Montell was able to incorporate her experiences with toxic relationships and beauty culture into this book. I also enjoyed how every chapter started with a different quote (the essay on over confidence with a Kendrick Lamar lyric definitely made me chuckle).

I feel like I'll definitely need to reread this book at some point because I feel like there were some parts I wasn't completely focused on while reading it. Overall this was a good nonfiction read and I recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting read.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

While much of what Montell discusses in this collection of essays is not novel and may have its roots in common understandings of psychology and sociology, I did find the way in which she discusses each of these trends and phenomena in our current to be entertaining and relatable. Montell weaves personal stories and events in to each of her essays that tackle different aspects of "modern irrationality" as the title puts it. She has a good handle on many aspects of culture and communicates her ideas in a relatable way. I wouldn't rate this is a great non-fiction, but it was a fun read that kept me entertained and also made me think about some of the topics discussed in different ways.

After reading and enjoying Cultish, I went into this book knowing less but expecting the same. I was disappointed to find a series of half-baked pop psychology loosely connected to the author's own experiences or pop culture references. The arc copy I received in exchange for my review had a lower page count than I've seen elsewhere online, so hopefully the published edition has more meat on the bones. What I read seemed like leftover pieces of research from Montell's first book that were uncomfortably combined together under a weak hypothesis- that humans are sometimes illogical? What could have been an interesting blog post, essay, or podcast episode was stretched into a full-length book. The ideas put forth were far from groundbreaking and will sound familiar to anyone who has sat through an intro level psychology course. While entertaining at times, overall this book felt both tedious and self-indulgent. I was disappointed to feel as though Montell was talking down to her audience. Overall I'd skip this one and stick with her previous work.

Thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as it looks at all the ways we overthink or use a kind of magical thinking in day to day life. The title is a riff from Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking where Didion used "magical thinking" to get through one of toughest times when her husband unexpectedly died, basically that one's internal thoughts can change real life events. Magical thinking gives us agency in a situation where we don't have any or very little. But in our present times, we are overloaded due to the internet and our brains can't process all of it. The author focuses on all the types of biases humans use in life from halo effect, sunk cost fallacy, confirmation bias, confidence bias, group think, etc. Think of the cancel culture that Taylor Swift followers can achieve and far right politics. She keeps it interesting with studies, real-life examples and humor. I learned alot and this is one of those books that helps the reader look at the world in a different way, hopefully, with the added knowledge and perspective that it contains.

I was/am a fan of Amanda Montell and her work. However, I had an extremely difficult time both understanding the purpose of and following the narrative of this book. I didn't see the connections between the anecdotes and research, and felt as if in many instances they book contradicted itself (often with the same section). Perhaps this was intentional given the goal of highlighting irrationality, but I just ended up feeling lost, bored, and completely unconvinced of Montell's arguments.

This is similar to her previous book Cultish in that Montell relates very engaging, entertaining, and highly informative psychological and social concepts to useful and memorable examples. This goes a lot more personal than Cultish, but I found the memoir portions and anecdotes for the most part interesting and relevant. There were some really fascinating factoids in this one (including some of the most surprising in the footnotes!). It did feel a bit broad at times for a short book, especially since these chapters read more as essays, so I think the "Notes" in the subtitle is very fitting, that's what these felt like: interesting, highly relevant to the current moment notes on our overly online existences and what it's doing to our brains, personalities. I think the main takeaway is it's healthier all around to spend less time online and worry less about what we read and see there, or at least take it less seriously.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the E-ARC! All opinions are my own.

I've been a long-time fan of Amanda Montell. Her nonfiction books are probably the only ones I can stomach and read through. When I saw she was coming out with a new book about overthinking, I knew she wrote it for me (this is completely rational).

Each chapter of The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality dives into different types of biases and mental processes that constitute societal interactions. I found myself reflected in a lot of what she discussed, and although I had a basic understanding of many of the different types of biases she presented, I genuinely learned a lot! I also appreciated how she was more vulnerable in this book than some of her others, embedding her personal stories alongside scientific research. Her voice really shines through in this book, which is one of the reasons I love her writing style so much.

That being said, I think the pacing of this book could be a bit better. For some sections, I was left wanting more as the topic was very engaging, whereas others felt like it was droning on and on. While this isn't my favorite book of hers, I definitely enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone!

I liked Cult-ish, and I liked this even better. Sometimes it feels like she has too many ideas to cohesively communicate them, but I was able to sort of fit the puzzle pieces together in my own head and appreciate why she had put them all there in the first place. I find her highly-researched yet personal approach to nonfiction refreshing.

I find books like this hard to rate because each chapter feels like different articles and some resonated with me more than others. If I were to rate chapter 3 on its own, it would be 5 stars. If I were to rate chapter 11 alone, it wouldn’t be as high. There were a lot of interesting insights in this book however, I was hoping for more insights on how to making the best of my overthinking and manage it.

Amanda Montell does it again—accessible, engaging, entertaining and relatable nonfiction. I’ve now read all her books and I’ve loved them all.

This one took me a little longer to get through because I read the ebook I think and I far prefer to listen to her on audiobooks instead, she just has a very conversational and gossipy (in the best way) tone that I feel like is made to listen to, and pretend you’re besties just having deep and personal chats that still somehow cycle around sociology terms but as applied to your fave pop culture or online obsessions… like the halo effect but applied to Taylor Swift, or how cognitive bias play into wellness culture and misinformation, or how the sunk cost fallacy keeps us in toxic relationships.

I’ve been familiar with most of the terms she’s framing in new ways here, and it’s a super enjoyable read as always.

She’s so interesting, funny and intelligent and I’m always down to go where her mind wanders next.

Forever fan.

Thanks to @netgalley and @atriabooks for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with advanced reader copy for my honest review.

This was an engaging and well-written book that combines a little memoir with modern day culture study and social science issues. I've read the author's previous 2 books, and this was my favorite of them. I may not agree with everything the author puts out there, but she presents her case in a smart and effective manner.

I found that I enjoyed reading this as a chapter at a time, letting a day or 2 go by before starting a new chapter.

I look forward to Montell's future books.

While somewhat different than Amanda Montell's previous works, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. This one is more introspective, with bouts of memoir interspersed with her research, but in this case, that worked quite well for me. If you're a fan of Montell, or are interested at all in the subject, be sure not to miss this one!

Many thanks to Atria for the digital review copy!

The Age of Magical Overthinking is Amanda Montell's deep dive into a variety of documented cognitive biases and how they influence the way we see the world. She incorporates her own personal stories as she details research about things like the sunk cost fallacy or recency bias, reminding us that our brains aren't always quite as reliable as we think they are.

Alright, let's jump right into my review of The Age of Magical Overthinking!

What I Liked

As always, Montell's tone is just so captivating. She balances her genuine curiosity about the world and her own mind with scholarship, creating a text that is both informative and relatable. We feel okay learning that our minds play tricks on us because Montell admits openly that hers does, too.

The subject matter is fascinating. As someone who always kind of wished I'd taken more psych classes in college, I love learning about how our minds work and the shortcuts they take. While I'd heard of a few of these cognitive biases in psych class, there were a few others I'd never heard of. I felt like I learned something in every chapter, and had fun doing it.

What I Didn't Like

My only real complaint about the book is that it felt a bit short at times. That's partly because the percentage read in my Kindle tricked me because the endnotes are a thing, but there were some chapters where I felt like we'd just really sunk into the subject before we were off to the next.

While this is technically a downside I think it's also a compliment because what it really means is that I wanted to listen to Montell explain cognitive biases for longer, which essentially means this book was great.

Final Thoughts

If you enjoy learning about how the human mind works and like a nice, personal approach to research, I highly recommend The Age of Magical Overthinking. I laughed, I learned, and I thought about how I think about things. Overall, a great reading experience.

After reading (and enjoying) Amanda Montell's popular novel, Cultish, I had high expectations for The Age of Magical Overthinking. Not only did this book live up to my expectations, but I honestly enjoyed the book even more than her previous work.

What I loved:
- The data: Amanda Montell does her research, and it shows. While Cultish focused heavily on historical stories with science scattered throughout, The Age of Magical Overthinking really leans into the psychology research, with a heavy focus on cognitive biases. Even though I'd learned about many of these topics before, it was truly fascinating seeing Montell describe the ways in which these cognitive biases appear in our current society. The way that she wove in personal anecdotes (including a toxic breakup, putting a parent on a pedestal, and getting sucked into online beauty culture) made her examples more relatable, and the data more salient.
- The pacing: This was a quick read. Even though there is a decent amount of data, the book doesn't get bogged down in facts. The chapters read quickly, and it was easy to zip right through this one.
- The takeaways: As I worked my way through this book, I was forced to take a step back and truly consider how seemingly rational people can sometimes make such questionable choices. As we enter a year that is already politically fraught, and certain to become more so, it was fascinating to see the psychology behind human's decisions. Montell also suggests ways that we can become more aware of our biases, and thus more thoughtful as we make decisions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for my advanced copy.

I cannot rave about this book enough! The cross pollination of social science and pop culture was music to my ears. Admittedly it was different than what I was expecting but in the best way possible. My college courses covered cognitive biases and I remember showing little to zero interest in what they had to say...that is until Amanda Montell decided to apply it to current, sometimes divisive, topics. Really can't recommend this enough if you're hoping to walk away feeling like you learned something!

Another hit from Ms. Montell. I already devoured her previous books, Wordslut and Cultish. I loved this book as well. Amanda has a way of drawing you in, no matter the subject. I can't wait to see what else she does in the future.