You're On Mute

A humorous and engaging book with a lot of helpful tips to ease the awkwardness of video calls in any situation.

You're On Mute: 101 Tips to Add Zip to your Zoom by Jo Hoare
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group – Ivy Press
Genre: Entertainment | Humor
Release Date: December 8, 2020

You're On Mute by Jo Hoare is filled with funny & practical tips to help improve your experience using Zoom and other virtual meeting services.

The book is broken down into 6 chapters: Chapter 1 - The Basics, Chapter 2 - Friends and Family, Chapter 3 - Quizzes, Chapter 4 - Dating, Chapter 5 - Work, Chapter 6 - The Pitfalls.

I really enjoyed reading this. The author put a fun spin on video calls. This was a quick read and it actually made me look forward to my next video conference!

I'm so grateful to Jo Hoare, Quarto Publishing Group – Ivy Press, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

A fun, short read which does what it promises: 101 tips to help navigate the "new normal" of video calling, which since the beginning of the lockdown has taken up far more of my work time than I ever would have anticipated or wanted. While there's nothing desperately new here, it's a useful reminder with a dash of humour, covering family, social and dating uses as well as work. I don't think I'm ever going to really like meetings via Teams, but since we're likely to be stuck with it for a while yet, it's good to figure out how to do it better.

You’re on Mute is probably the funniest book ever written about the bane of 2020, Zoom. It includes sections on work meetings, family gatherings, dating and job interviews. The book doesn’t tell you which button to push to unmute yourself. Instead, it focuses on the etiquette of video meetings. Jeffrey Toobin would still have his job, instead of #MeToobin as his legacy, if he had read this book!

I, personally, spend approximately half my work day using Zoom. I admit that I rarely turn on video for me, as the host, or anyone else. It just seems cruel to do that in a state where hair salons and barbershops have been intermittently closed since March. So I’m not a candidate for Zoom-scaping my background. Though if I did, I think I would go for sitting in front of a window so I look “taken into witness protection and can’t have their identity revealed“.

After being forced into attending four hours of classes on Zoom by my boss, I was curious how much I could learn within this book. There were several new ideas. I had never heard of virtual pub quizzes or Netflix Party before. With 101 tips, everyone is sure to find new ideas. 4 stars!

Thanks to Ivy Press, Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Never thought I would be reading a book about video chatting, but here I am. Google books classifies it as Humour while Amazon has it in their Business Culture category. I say it belongs to both. Have a laugh while learning some netiquette (online etiquette).

It has 101 tips distributed among 6 chapters: the basics, friends and family, quizzes, dating, work and the pitfalls. Each chapter is a collection of short tips that you can read in order or just choose from the category that catches your attention. I read them all in one sit, I was planing to read just one chapter before going to bed and next thing I noticed I finished the whole book.

I laughed a lot because many things mentioned here are relatable, like the typical awkward moment when everyone talks at the same time, then we all go silent and restart the awkwardness with “you go, no you first, no you”. Even when most of the tips are written in a humorous, relaxed way, they are worth taking more seriously.