Everyone seems to be obsessed with Hygge at the minute, but what is it? Hygge- The Danish Secrets of Happiness by Maya Thorsen is a small book that I am hoping will answer that question.
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The book
In Hygge: The Danish Secrets of Happiness. How to be Happy and Healthy in Your Daily Life, you can learn the secrets to making your life more enjoyable and minimizing your stress. You can learn how to add coziness to your days instead of stress. Above all, you can remember to stop staring at your phone and instead make more magical moments with your loved ones. It can be important to make money to keep the roof over your head and buy stuff for yourself and family. But what about experiences? Experiences can be far more lasting and meaningful than cars, clothes, gadgets, and accessories. In the book, you will learn how to simplify your life and become happier by favoring the little moments over material things. You can learn to prefer spending time with your family and doing fun activities for free over stressing about making credit card payments. When the book arrived, I was quite disappointed by the size of it, I had expected something a lot bigger and packed with information about what Hygge actually is.
Thoughts on the Book
Like I said, I was disappointed with the size of the book but once I read it, I realised why it is so small. Hygge is not supposed to be complicated and long-winded. As nice as it would be to have a complete step-by-step guide to exactly what Hygge is, that was not what this book was about. And I’m not alone with my disappointing view. One reader left a review explaining their displeasure-
“The writer claims that this is a ‘book’ but at just 50 pages long, it would be more accurate to describe it as a leaflet. It is badly edited, with terrible punctuation and lots of grammatical errors. I wish self-published writers would realise that an actual BOOK should be AT LEAST 50,000 words in length to qualify for that title and to make the writer an author. Sadly, this offering is unworthy of both terms. I shall be dropping this off at the charity shop asap. Don’t waste your money on this. There are far better quality books available that have gone through the traditional publishing process and which explain Hygge with more depth and without blatantly ‘borrowing’ from more successful titles and then failing to reference those titles correctly. Inspiration is one thing, but this little hobby-effort verges dangerously on plagiarism. I’ve worked in publishing for over 20 years. This isn’t how its done! Save your money. I can only hope that this ‘author’ hasn’t given up her day job because a professional career in writing is highly unlikely!”
Ouch! But the reviewer has a point. Although I haven’t read extensively on the subject, the book is too short to give any real information. Yes, we get the jist of what hygge is but I could have gotten the same info from a quick scroll through Instagram. I’m not against short and small books, one of my favourites was Little Black Book, however the length of this guide verges on insulting.
Thoughts on the Author
I’ve copied this directly from her Amazon info because I can find very little info about the author.
Maya Thoresen is a Danish author, passionate about self-help topics and other non-fiction writing. Her goal is to help others find the inner happiness that she has at this point in her life. In her late 30s, Maya intends to continue providing helpful information and interesting antidotes to those who need them. She created this book to reach people who are caught up in the hustle of commercialized life and who have forgotten to enjoy the simpler moments. She divulges her secrets to a richer, more enjoyable life in this book.
Fin
I really wanted to like this book. As a writer myself, I understand how hard it is. But this book is so short and has no real information in it, I feel like it was banged out over a weekend and popped up for a quick way to cash in on the hygge lifestyle. I’m not saying don’t read it, if you have Kindle Unlimited and want a quick read, then go on ahead. But I wouldn’t recommend buying a paperback copy of the book, it would be a waste of your money.