I'm really surprised by the range of reactions to the book - apparently a lot of people really found it almost offensive, while others seemed to find it inspiring..

Personally, I've got a bit of a fascination with how our brains work and I've read a lot of psychology-focused books on what makes people effective, happy, etc. and I've found (almost) all of them interesting. What I liked about this book is that the author put a plan together and went about a personal experiment. Sure it was contrived. So what?

And yes, she's got a 'good' life compared to many - that doesn't mean that she's happy or as happy as she could be. It also doesn't mean that she has nothing useful to say - privilege doesn't discount her ability to provide some useful insight and possibly spark some self-inspection and self-improvement.

I actually really liked some of the things that she did to practically apply a lot of the research she reviewed. It helps me to focus on what I can do to translate some of the information that I've gathered from my own reading into my own daily life.