I can’t say I was over the moon about Sasha Galitsky‘s first book, Mama, Don’t Worry!, but it offered a very interesting perspective on aging, with unconventional thoughts and advice. It was definitely worth reading, and I even added it to my recommended list.
Almost immediately after, I found out that Sasha had written a second book on the same theme—Don’t Be Afraid! But this time, instead of talking about how to get along with the elderly, he focuses on how not to fear aging yourself, as reflected in the subtitle: How to Grow Old Without Losing Your Mind.
The first book was based on the author’s blog posts, which was quite noticeable, but the second book really disappointed me. It feels like an attempt to recycle the same theme and material for a second time.
Once again, it’s filled with brief sketches and thoughts, presented in the form of micro-chapters. It even seems like the thoughts were written first, and only later was there an attempt to come up with clever titles for them.
And once again, there’s an abundance of the author’s illustrations, which have absolutely no connection to the text. It feels like the illustrations are just there to showcase himself. There are almost as many illustrations as there are pages of text, in this already small book of just 160 pages.
A large portion of the material consists of stories and quotes from elderly people. But in most cases, it’s unclear how these are related to the chapter. The author’s thoughts seem to stand alone, while the stories feel disconnected, as if they just popped into his head and he decided to write them down without much relevance.
Some of these stories are even repeated from his previous book. It makes the second book feel like a “side view” of the first one, rather than something new. As a result, it comes across as quite secondary and redundant.
My rating: 2/5
