linaslzr's reviews
107 reviews

I enjoyed The Last Lecture overall for its straightforwardness, reflection, and practical advice. Randy Pausch ties many classic clichés to his own life experiences, such as "luck is where preparation meets opportunity" and the idea that brick walls are meant to test how badly we want something. While I appreciate the sentiment, some of his examples felt disingenuous or hard to relate to. For instance, his success stories often gloss over the role of privilege, which made some of his advice feel out of touch or overly self-congratulatory.  

I did enjoy the little reminders sprinkled throughout, like the idea that not everything needs to be fixed and the significance of offering sincere apologies. These moments, while not revolutionary, were practical and worth reflecting on. However, some parts of his personal narrative irked me. For example, he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of actions over words but seemed to fall short in his own life when it came to his family. He expressed immense love for his wife and children, yet he spent a significant amount of his limited time preparing this lecture—much to the dismay of his wife, who sacrificed so much during his illness (i obvs dont know how she actually felt but he did mention it). While he acknowledges her sacrifices, his actions in prioritizing the lecture over their last months together didn’t entirely align with his professed values, and that contradiction left a sour note for me.  

That said, his reflections on parenting were among the highlights of the book. His hopes for his children and the descriptions of their qualities were heartfelt and sweet, offering an important message for parents. However, moments like describing his daughter as "all girl," while intended to be admiring, struck me as a bit odd.  

Ultimately, the book offers a mix of relatable and less relatable moments. It’s reflective and uplifting but occasionally undermined by a lack of self-awareness regarding privilege and some contradictions in the author’s actions. While I only listened to the 4-hour audiobook, these elements made me less fond of Pausch’s personality, even as I appreciated the book’s core message about living fully, living alignment with your vaues, and remembering to have fun.

I like the introduction which provided more context for the story and also found the appendix interesting, learning about the author's relationship to the manuscript, not having read it for sp many years bc of how traumatic it was. 

I found the prose simple but interesting enough. The writing was quite visceral and graphic at times, and really vague others. A bit of weird mix of straightforward narrative and disjointed monologues. I think it did a good job of portraying a really deep sadness, and I guess I did end up feeling some sympathy for him at times. It felt like he was projecteing his desperation, self-deprecation, and bitterness onto his view of the world, which also reflects societal norms, especially for the time that it was written. It felt incomplete which I guess make sense. 

Overall, I enjoyed it. I like the inclusion of specific research studies but thought that some of the case studies went on a bit longer than necessary. It was written in pop-psychology style which is fine, but I found the practical advice too vague a lot of the time. Especially because for most the book it relates these concepts to the business world (interviews, DEI meetings, etc), and then goes in a different direction on the last third of the book to how love/connection is the defining factor for life satisfaction/health/happiness. None is his advice is innovative and it feels like a lot of it is already done by people who always need to think about how they exist in the world and how the way they communicate with others impacts their treatment (e.g., women, people of colour, neurodivergent people).