Unfortunately this book didn't hold my attention and I couldn't finish it. I found it a bit slow and my mind kept wandering. I was hoping it was just that I wasn't in the mood at the time I started reading and that maybe I could pick it up again at a later date and try again. Unfortunately the second attempt wasn't better and I had to DNF this book.

This book was super *fine*. It had some good tidbits, but I'm not sure it justified its own existence very well. Overall not upset I read it, because it's short, but I wouldn't particularly recommend it except to someone who had never read a book in this vein before.

Having studied psychology in college, I felt that I had a fairly good grasp of the ways expectation can affect experience and was skeptical that I’d learn much from this book. While I did come to the topic with a solid foundation, I was pleasantly surprised that there was still much to learn and consider. In this book David Robson provides some surprising research about just how much additional control humans may have over their experiences through mental framing with applications to subjects such as pain, age, sports performance, hunger, and others. Each chapter ends with some tips to try to put the concepts into action which I’ve enjoyed practicing over the last few days.

Thank you to the publisher, author and NetGalley for this ALC.

Recommended for: anyone who enjoys psychology and interdisciplinary applications.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC of the audiobook for this title in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

I grabbed this ARC on audio because I truly am very interested in the topic. Ultimately, the book touted itself as a counter to pseudoscientific self help books, but most of what was written about placebo and nocebo effects is just new packaging. He even quotes Carol Dweck and the fixed/growth mindset in the book (her book is just a better version of this one imo.) The book is certainly worth checking out, but overall I was dissapointed, and didn’t feel like much new ground was covered here.