1 out of 4 stars
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Anne Elizabeth Nixon’s Success! is a short how-to guide about achieving success in a multitude of occupations (e.g., carpenter, commercial pilot, furniture restorer, et cetera), and this guide is based on Nixon’s own experiences in said jobs. At only 68 pages long, Success! is a very short read, and it can certainly be finished in a single sitting.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy reading this book. There are a couple of major flaws which led to this rating, and regrettably, said flaws have overshadowed any positive point Success! might have possessed. Before proceeding to explain these negatives, I will first rate Nixon’s Success! 1 out of 4 stars.
Firstly, as mentioned, Nixon’s book is a very short read. In other words, Nixon has prioritised breadth at the expense of depth. To better illustrate, out of the 23 chapters that make up the book, 18 detail her various job experiences (one occupation per chapter, with each chapter being 3-4 pages long). Moreover, Nixon has mistaken retellings of her experiences as job advice. Hence, in each chapter, there is very little real advice to be found. For example, in her chapter regarding piloting, she has lamentably only given a sentence of advice for those seeking a commercial pilot license: to rack up hours and experience as a trainer. However, she does not include advice as to how to become a trainer in the first place. Consequently, Success! becomes more like a very brief memoir rather than a how-to guide to occupational success.
Other than the lack of detail, it is also lamentable that the advice given is not in line with the current time period. This is perhaps due to Nixon’s pursuit of specificity: while endeavouring to provide as much context as possible to allow her reader to be able to take on any job that she has written about, her advice inevitably becomes solely based on her own experience, which seems to have happened quite a long time ago. Hence, it is not only disappointingly obsolete, but also extremely limiting. Times have changed vastly, and with globalisation already happening, things have also become much too complicated to be solved with a simple Google search (which she uses as one of her general solutions to problems).
Next, Nixon’s writing is inconsistent at times, resulting in conflicting ideas and general confusion. For example, Nixon states “(not to) spend years studying a subject that has no future”, but simultaneously, she also says “once you find your niche(,) you can study anything you’re interested in simply for fun”. This is oxymoronic, because what if one likes a subject that “has no future”? Passion and responsibility can be mutually exclusive, so what happens then?
Finally, the copy of Success! that I received has not been prepared for professional publication, as there are many grammar and layout errors, such as inconsistent tense usage and irregular font sizes. There is also a high tendency to bold many phrases for emphasis. All of these errors detract from reading comprehension, clarity, and flow, which is such a pity! The book seems to be haphazardly put together, and when this is coupled with the obsolete and inconsistent advice present, the need for Nixon to go through her work with the help of an editor to iron out all of these serious issues becomes of utmost importance. Hence, I am unable to recommend Success! in its current form to anyone. Once edited, it would definitely be a decent but brief guide for those seeking some general advice regarding choosing one's career path in America.
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Success!
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