This was one of my most favorite books. I guess it’s a “self help” book but one that uses a “perhaps consider this” approach. It presents such a great approach to life that I find very useful. Also, I found it hilarious.

This is a proper philosophy book. I thought it would be slightly easier to breeze through but it felt quite dense and important. I also thought it would be a scientifically proven way to best live your life sort of thing but it is not. It may carry this authoritative narrative but it is just an argument for a better way to live life. This is a proper philosophy book. It carries a lot of wisdom and beauty and food for thought.

This book is said to be the crash course of emotional maturity and I wonder if that's why it sucked for me. There were too many definitions, perspectives and information stuffed into 300 pages, which really isn't a lot. I feel like the author was barely scratching the surface with this. Ambitious, sure, but it fell flat.

The School of Life is a quietly very well written guide to your own inner thoughts and worries which, rather than bringing you an influx of new ideas, reminds you of ideals you already have and brings them back to the foreground with clarity in a way you perhaps hadn’t considered before.

This is a book I’m sure I will refer back to in the future and will be recommending to friends!

I was a bit disappointed in ths book. Mainly because I've read several of Bottons other books and really liked them. I realise that this is not a "normal/standard" Alain de Botton book. It seems more like a compilation of other texts. All from The School of Life.
It has some very interesting insights and is therefore well worth reading, but it repeats more or less the same ideas in different ways or with different words. It also often goes into too much detail.
It doesn't have that much concrete advice either which one would expect from this kind of book.
Worth a read but I liked Bottons "own" books better.