Our book club happened to choose this as our first read, and it left me with conflicting emotions. While Hans Rosling’s heart is in the right place, I found his writing style frustrating. The constant mentions of giving speeches, attending conferences, name-dropping, and the repeated claim that 'experts perform worse than chimpanzees' quickly became tiresome. I just wanted him to focus on the subject matter.

That said, the book did lead to interesting discussions, which was a plus. I learned a lot about the various cognitive instincts that cause humans to draw poor conclusions. My opinion of the book was at first, "he’s so insufferable" in Chapter 1. Then, as I got used to his style, it became "Haha… he’s in Africa advising yet another health minister." By the later chapters, I found myself thinking, "Hmm… he actually makes some good points. This is interesting."

I still believe this book could have been a solid 5/5 if it had been more tightly edited. The content is good. It just needed a more refined execution