Karsten Dusse

Moriti čuječe

Eva Korosec

3,5/5 (but I’m rounding up to 4 stars because the good parts outshine the bad ones)

I was so excited to read this book and it did not disappoint! It was the perfect easy read I’ve been craving these past few weeks.

The story follows an overworked and cynical lawyer named Björn who is pressured by his wife to take a therapy course on mindfulness and how staying in the moment helps you get rid of stress and bitterness. And it works. A little too much. 

Shortly after his course is done, he finds himself using mindfulness in his every day life — he decides to prioritize spending time with his daughter over his stressful workload, which incidentally leads to letting his most important client (a dangerous mafia boss who is wanted for murder) die in the trunk of his car. Oops. The things we do for family, right?

Not to give too much away, the story then follows Björn as he uses mindfulness to navigate his life from this point onward, trying to keep the criminals and police who are looking for his client at an arm’s length, all while trying to repair his relationship with his wife and daughter (which, to be perfectly honest, is kind of pushed to the background. The tense mafia storyline is the central story here). 

When I say this book is a true page-turner, I mean it. Whenever I picked it up, I couldn’t put it back down (aside from two chapters that I found a bit tedious, but that’s besides the point), it was such a wonderful mix of gripping tension and satirical humour regarding the ever so popular philosophy of mindfulness that has become so popular in the recent years. I have to also admit that the author did a great job incorporating actual advice on how to be more mindful in your every day life into the story itself. So, if you want to learn about mindfulness but don’t really enjoy the cheesy personal growth books, this is the novel for you. 

However, I do have to say that there were also a few things about the book I found a bit drab and even irritating at times, the main being the main character’s very cynical point of view that didn’t really hit all the right notes with me. Sure, I snorted with laughter at quite a few of his remarks, but he lost me whenever he was giving his impression of some other people he came across (especially since he was most bitter and demeaning to the female characters in this way). But I guess I’m just really tired of reading about cynical male characters who are better than the “stupid bitter secretaries” (paraphrased, but you get it) etc. The one star this book lost was definitely because of that.

Moriti čuječe

Reviews