Book Review: The Power of Body Language By Joe Navarro

Very unusual from what I usually read, this isn’t fiction at all. Joe Navarro is a former FBI specialist, who knows how to read people. I was recommended this book by a colleague who said I’d probably find it interesting (which I did, not gonna lie), and I got it since it was on Audible.

Again, the subject is very interesting. Navarro clearly know a whole deal about how humans act and what the things we do with our body means, and he conveys that to the listener with interesting examples throughout the book.

But…

This is painful to read. I’d go as far as to say one of the worst books I’ve read this year, in DESPERATE need of an editor.

The beginning is the worst. There’s lots of idiotic examples of things that just can’t happen (I recall something about dogs not speaking English) and tons of unnecessary repetition (things like: “if you’re a father, or a mother”. Navarro, there’s a word for that: “parent”!)

And it’s constant! The audiobook is 7 hours I think, and you could easily cut the first 1, 1,5 and the you’d end up with the exact same book. Same with the ending, where there’s lots of repetition. I think the idea was that Navarro wanted to summarize, but he’s just repeating himself constantly.

I think the problem is that Navarro and whoever produced this, did it as a seminar instead of a book. It sound to me like they just put Navarro in a studio and let him talk, rather than have him read from something he’d written.

In conclusion: fascinating subject, awful book. Good case study of how not to write a book.