We all behave differently depending on the situation

QuietQuiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
by Susan Cain

I had been looking forward to this book for a long time. I watched and enjoyed Cain’s TED talk about introversion and I have seen many positive reviews. Perhaps I had overhyped the book to myself, but in the end I was disappointed – I felt the book was trying to be too many things and didn’t quite hit the mark.

As the title suggests, this book is about people who are quiet, or introverted. An author’s note acknowledges that Cain has followed the popular conception of introversion as an all-encompassing label for quiet people, rather than using one of the various scientific descriptions. (Personally I think that information would have been useful in the main text.)

“We all behave differently depending on the situation. But if we’re capable of such flexibility, does it even make sense to chart the differences between introverts and extroverts? Is the very notion of introversion-extroversion too pat a dichotomy…Aren’t we all a little of both?”

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