Review of Twelve Rules for Life

Honestly I just wanted to write this review because I had a thought. That thought was that Jordan Peterson, in his writing on male serial rapists and mass murderers, of whom he speaks about with love and understanding, in some ways takes on the role of the Christian God he also uses as so much of a backdrop for his book.

In many ways, one would expect these people to be irredeemable, but Peterson, with words like:

Some fucking quote idk

attempts to, by accepting them, accept the flaws of the reader. It took until about Chapter 11 for this slow build up of acceptance to finally reach a tipping point, for him to finally start to really engage the reader in taking responsibility for their life, and to argue that maybe, the reader isn't special. That the reader is not alone in wanting to strike out against God and against existence, though of that he has total understanding. But has the reader genuinely taken full responsibility for the life that has been given them, and that maybe that should be a first port of course.

I don't think that this book was for me. But I do think, having stopped and started it, that I've finally landed on a feeling of fondness for Peterson's writing. That actually without necessarily meaning to (we don't know), this book, for a specific audience of lost young men, may have been something akin to a guiding, paternalistic force that truly spoke to and loved them.