People have told me that I’m an introvert, and so have a few Myers Briggs tests, but reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking confirmed it. I’m sure I had a similar reaction to Quiet as did other introverts — something like: I’m not a complete freak. And that’s why I really enjoyed the book.
Plus, Ms. Cain writes really well. I didn’t like all the chapters equally — for example, the one on relationships was very interesting, whereas the one on raising kids was not as much — but overall, the book kept my attention and offered a new way of being in the world. Its message, in short, was, Everything is OK.
At points, however, I felt like Ms. Cain (introverted herself) was trying to argue that introverts are smarter and kinder and better people who have more empathy. Whenever she’d go a little too much in this direction, though, she made sure to reel her judgment back in to a more objective stance.
Another way to think about this book: It’s definitely somewhere in the newish nonfiction genre, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, of self-help-with-a-little-science, but Ms. Cain’s tone wasn’t as matter-of-fact annoying, not as too-sure. I liked that a lot.