I first picked this book up in its audio version but after just a couple of minutes of listening to it, I knew that I needed to get its physical copy. I didn’t want to miss any valuable information since it sounded like there was so much to take away from it. My first impression was definitely confirmed during the reading experience and to start with a spoiler, this book definitely deserved 5/5 ★ in my opinion!

As the subtitle of the book already implies it, “The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking”, the main goal here was to uncover the differences between introverts and extroverts, as well as to explain how our society got to the point that it’s much more appreciative of the latter personality trait. From the beginning until the very end, my attention got captivated and I always wanted to continue reading. I found that the author managed to find the perfect balance between more scientific parts on the one hand, explaining specific studies, and on the other hand parts that focused more on storytelling, so that you always had some illustrative examples. You never felt like you were overloaded with too much information at once and it kept the whole text flowing really nicely.

[T]oday we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts – which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are. Depending on which study you consult, one third to one half of Americans are introverts (…).

p. 3

While reading, I kept marking passage after passage, picking up interesting bits of information all along the way. From insights into who “highly sensitive” people are (p. 14), how the “personality trend” pushing us into the outgoing ideal can mostly be dated back to the 1920s in the US (p. 24) and how toxic open space offices actually are (p. 84)! The range of the book was really wide, while still managing to keep its focus on the exploration of the “world of introverts”. Coincidentally, there were a couple of cross-overs with some other books I read lately, which allowed me to draw numerous parallels between subjects like:

• The reality of being discriminated against even though one makes up about 50% of the population, a topic around which the book “Invisible Women” was centred:

Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.

p. 4

• The advantageous way of learning by following introvert’s examples, similar to the focus of the book “The Shallows“, investigating the various ways of how our brain processes information:

The best violinists rated “practice alone” as the most important of all their music-related activities. (…) “Serious study alone” is the strongest predictor of skill for tournament-rated chess players, for example (…). College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. Even elite athletes in team sports often spend unusual amounts of time in solitary practice.

p. 81

• How there are different standards of appreciation among different cultures, something that I really enjoyed previously reading about in the book “The Culture Map“:

The Americans emphasize sociability and prize those attributes that make for easy, cheerful association. The Chinese emphasize deeper attributes, focusing on moral virtues and achievement.

p. 187

I felt like the book especially spoke to me because it allowed me to better understand my personality, my strengths and my general preferences in life. It seems like it’s mainly targeted towards introverts since I wouldn’t necessarily see an extrovert choosing a book with a white cover and its title hardly being legible at a bookstore 😅 It’s a pity because similar to the book “Invisible Women”, which I wished to be read by more men in order to understand the struggles women have to go through in this world, I would hope more extroverts would read “Quiet” to better understand why introverts are the way they are and what they can learn from them.

This book is an absolute recommendation from my side, for both introverts and extroverts. It also has really insightful parts for parents with tips for introvert children. It speaks about so many different topics by which the majority of us is faced with nowadays, in 2023: a school education that only pushes us towards the extrovert ideal, forced group brainstorming sessions that aren’t productive, forced public speaking etc. You could really feel how well researched the book was while reading it and the assumption got confirmed in the end when the author explained that it took her five years to research and write it. Another book found to be added to my list of all time favorites without a doubt! 😊

★★★★★ (5/5)

_{Edition: ISBN 978-0-141-02919-1
Penguin Books, 2013 (Originally published in 2012)}