Book Review | The Empathy Exams

The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


"I want to show off my knowledge of something.Anything."

That one sentence pretty much sums up the whole book. Every essay felt like an attempt to show off how smart she is. She's much better at writing about feelings than actually feeling them. Which would have been fine if her thoughts weren't so vague and scattered. She uses a lot of words in such a circular way that by the time you've finished the 218 pages you've read only a tiny bit of actual information on a lot of different subjects.

Most essays have a pretty easy to figure out formula:

1. Pick a hot button issue/little known fact to grab the readers attention.

2. Use a lot of flowery language(to sound super smart) or an excess of profanity(to make sure everyone knows she's also edgy and cool)in a circular way so that by the end of the essay the reader forgets what the topic of the essay even was.

3. Uses the circular language as a segue into a story about herself that only vaguely relates to the original topic of the essay.

She goes out of her way to tell the reader personal information about herself(i.e. getting an abortion, having an eating disorder, addiction, cutting, promiscuity...) but stops at that. No additional information, no history, just here's my problem. It's like she's fishing for empathy for herself from the reader. Which, I wouldn't have minded at all if she had given some insight into why she had those behaviors. It's hard to feel empathy about a situation when you have NO idea why it's taking place. Was she abused, bullied, neglected? Or is she experiencing some sort of unprovoked psychotic break that requires medication to control her self-harming behaviors? I don't know.

When you get to the end of the book it all just feels like a major let down. No insight into empathy, humanity, her...anything.

There were so many missed opportunities within the subjects of each essay to have really meaningful conversations about empathy that the book became just plain aggravating to read.



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