Book Review: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

This is a book review that requires a bit of a preface.

I had no idea who Mel Robbins was but I did notice “The Let Them Theory” explode in popularity from the minute it was published. There are some self-help books, like “Atomic Habits,” that become phenomenons, and “The Let Them Theory” was clearly one of them. My first encounter with Mel Robbins was through a YouTube video Ryan Holiday made of her visit to his bookstore. Her over the top reactions seemed wild to me, particularly considering the setting. Once doesn’t expect people to be this vocally enthusiastic in a bookstore. As my interest in the video was more focused on the children’s books that Ryan recommended, I didn’t give Robbins much thought beyond noting that she was quite a character.

The YouTube algorithm being what it is, it next offered up her appearance on Rich Roll’s podcast. I don’t watch podcasts on YouTube (I listen to them on Overcast, usually during long runs or when I’m doing mindless chores), and I don’t subscribe to Rich Roll’s podcast, but I have listened to an episode here and there over the years. He’s generally a good interviewer, and as I was intrigued by Mel Robbin’s character and the book’s meteoric success, I downloaded the episode and listened to it while I was training for my latest 10k. I later also listened to Ryan Holiday interview Mel Robbins, and I have to say that was just pointless marketing fluff where both of them appeared to talk but not really listen to each other.

The Rich Roll interview on the other hand is worth listening to if you have any interest in the book or the phenomena around it. Roll not only delved into the ideas in “The Let Them Theory” but also pushed back against a good chunk of them, and the back and forth between the two taught me a lot about both Mel Robbins and her book. If you’re at all curious about “The Let Them Theory” I recommend listening to this podcast. You’ll get 80-90% of what’s in the book, plus a lot of interesting insights from Rich that go beyond what Mel Robbins provides.

End of preface.

I bought the book and read it. The amount of hate and vitriol that people seem to enjoy spewing at this book in places like GoodReads beggars belief. You’d think that Mel Robbins is the source of all the world’s problems.
The reality is that this a pretty standard self-help book. There’s two and half ideas in it, it could have totally been a blog post, and most of the book is anecdotes, personal stories, repetition and fluff. The ideas in it aren’t new. Mel Robbins doesn’t claim they are – she just found a pretty useful way to package them. If you’re familiar with detachment, there’s nothing new this book will teach you. It is, however, easily digestible, entertaining and light hearted. The main ideas in it are: “let them” (detach but preserve your ego in the process), “let me” (don’t be an aloof a-hole), and put yourself in their place to encourage empathy with other people and their perspective.

The thing that I find curious is the kind of “Oprah Winfrey” vibe the whole thing has. Robbins is very enthusiastic, seems very mercurially sincere, and seems to enjoy using herself and her close family as test subjects and example for her “theory”.

And here we come to the word that has maybe angered more reviewers than any other when it comes to this book: “theory”.

Let me be clear – this isn’t a theory, it never was a theory, it’s a catchphrase. But the “Let Them Catchphrase” doesn’t sell as many copies, does it?

In then end I’d give this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. Why? Because I grade books on a curve, and compared to other self-help books this one is entertaining and is potentially useful. The ideas in it aren’t new, but there are practically no self-help books that present new ideas – it’s all in the packaging. I’ve tried the ideas in it, and I’ve offered them to others, and they work, because we are egotistical beings, and because remembering “let them” is easy when you’re in the heat of the moment. It’s also readable and fun, which is a rarity for a self-help book. Robbins knows how to tell a good story, and her character comes through in her writing. That may rub you the wrong way, or you may find it joyful – that’s mostly up to you.

Would I recommend this book? Maybe. Listen to the Rich Roll podcast. If you want to delve a bit more into the ideas there, then get the book. Otherwise, skip it. Just don’t buy the book to rage review how books like this are ruining Western Civilization. That’s neither true nor helpful.

Book Review: A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

I bought A Visit from the Goon Squad back in 2011, as it was part of that year’s Tournament of Books. It has languished on my Kindle ever since. This year, however, I have decided to read the oldest unread books on my Kindle, and so it was A Visit from the Goon Squad’s turn.

First of all, the book has a dreadful name. It’s trying to be sophisticated, it ends up being uninformative and unappealing. It’s sounds like a book about comedians, or maybe a family saga of some kind, but it’s basically a string of partially connected episodes about people that work or have worked in the music industry.

I almost gave up on this book as about 50 pages in I found myself not liking any of the characters and finding the narrative dull and bland. Then Rhea appeared, and I found myself pulled into the story. She redeemed the book, and it got better and better as I read along.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a very readable book, apart from the deliberately dreadful writing of the only writer in the novel, Jules Jones. There’s a character that didn’t redeem himself – the more I saw of him the less I liked.

The book didn’t age well, and will likely age even worse with time. It’s embedded in a certain era – pre smart phones, social media and AI – but it’s not written in a way that will allow it to be timeless. The powerpoint penultimate chapter reads as a dated gimmick, and the last, “futuristic” chapter is truly terrible. It really brings the book down, as even for its time it serves mainly as a window to Egan’s biases and anxieties more than to the true zeitgeist of the time.

Egan’s choice to build the narrative on episodic encounters with loosely connected characters was groundbreaking for the time, and the book won a Pulitzer Prize. In 2019 Bernadine Evaristo will take this concept and do it much, much better with Girl, Woman, Other thus leaving Egan’s novel in the dust.

While I don’t regret reading A Visit from the Goon Squad I wouldn’t recommend it. It didn’t stand the test of time, there are much better books to read, and it’s attempt to capture the zeitgeist of a time so fleeting it practically didn’t exist (the oughts) isn’t worth the reader’s time. Read Evaristo’s novel instead.

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Summary

Diamine Inkvent 2025 the Teal Edition is over, and what a wild ride it has been. The 2025 edition introduced Pigment inks, which are waterproof when dry, and some interesting ink colour and property combinations.

Inkvent for me is a chance to play with inks that I normally wouldn’t try out, and it’s also a blogging, sketching and writing challenge. This year was more challenging than previous years, as I had received this calendar late, and so about half of the reviews were done on the actual day they were published, and the rest were only done a day or two in advance. I’m glad that I got it done, and I’m also glad that I chose a new streamlined format, as it helped me focus and get the reviews done on time.

Its the 6th year in a row that I’ve been creating these review posts, from the very first Inkvent calendar in 2019 (Blue Edition), through 2021 (Red Edition), 2022 (Green Edition), 2023 (Purple Edition), 2024 (Black Edition) and now this year, 2025 Teal Edition (Diamine didn’t create a 2020 Inkvent calendar. That was the Covid year).

Here’s a summary of this year’s Inkvent, first by ink colour, then property, and finally my personal favourites.

By Ink Colour

This is the full lineup of the Inkvent 2025 Teal Edition inks:

Unsurprisingly blue inks dominated this year’s calendar with a total of 7 inks in the blue/turquoise/Teal range. Both the first and the last inks for this year were teal inks, which is a given considering this is the Teal Edition of the calendar. Of these inks Dream Catcher is a sorry miss for me, as you don’t get to see the lovely base ink colour due to the extreme sheen (which also makes this a messy, slow drying ink with potential flow issues) and Overcast is lovely but much too light to be readable for me.

Four reds and pinks were in this year’s Inkvent, which is a pretty low number for an average Inkvent calendar. These were all decent Inkvent inks, and I’m pretty pleased with this lineup.

There were four earth tones in the calendar, with Smoky Tobacco being my least favourite ink ever. Apart from that, it was a good and interesting year for earth tones inks.

There were only 3 green inks in this year’s inkvent, with Fir & Fog being one of my favourites, Bittersweet being too light for my tastes and Laurel being gorgeous but made worse by extreme sheen.

Only two purple inks were in this year’s inkvent, with Energy being destroyed by sheen, and Gala being nice but a bit bland and light for my tastes.

And then there were 5 “wildcard” inks. Bubbly in gold, Molten Basalt the weird unspecified dark colour, Ambiance the only orange ink, Chaos the other weird ink and Pineapple Spritz the only yellow ink.

By Ink Properties

This year was a year for Standard, Chameleon, Shimmer, Extreme Sheen and Pigment inks. I would have liked to see more Pigment inks and less Extreme Sheen ones, but that’s because I want to use them in my sketching.

There were three Shimmer inks, all of them pretty and fitting a holiday themed calendar. Shimmer inks have sparkly bits in them, but unlike Chameleon ink it’s one shade of shimmer, and usually larger shimmer particles.

There was thankfully only one Scented ink this year, but to make up for that, it was truly, truly awful.

There were three Pigment inks, and while I liked antler and carousel I wish that they hadn’t chosen to make the bubblegum pink ink a Pigment ink. Pigment inks are waterproof.

The only Sheen ink this year was Energy, and the sheen really detracted from it. It made it look like there was a thick layer of dust on this ink.

There were three Extreme Sheen inks, and all of them would have been better served by not being extreme sheen inks. In particular Laurel suffered from the extreme sheen treatment, because the base dark green is very nice, but you get to see so little of it through the red sheen.

There was one Pigment Chameleon ink, Pineapple Spritz. I would have really liked this ink to have been just a pigment ink and not a pigment chameleon (with fine glitter in multiple shades).

There was one ink with Pigment Shimmer, Brrr! and again, I would have probably selected this ink as one of my favourites if it didn’t have both the Pigment and Shimmer properties.

There was one Shimmer and Sheen ink, the last but not least Myrrh the Merrier. I expect the last ink in the calendar to have Diamine going all out, and they did well with this ink.

There are no less than five Chameleon inks in this calendar, and it’s clear that Diamine are (rightfully) proud of their Chameleon shimmer.

There were 6 Standard inks, which is always good to see. These inks may be shading, or have a bit of sheen to them, but they’re generally good, well behaved inks that you can use with the knowledge that they won’t be too difficult to clean out of a pen.

My Favourites

While I have more than enough inks in my collection so I’m probably not going to rush out to buy any of these once Diamine issues the Teal Edition full bottles of them some time in July 2026, these inks are my favourites this year:

Celestial Skies is just a pretty teal with excellent shimmer that makes it truly shine. Carousel is one of the pigment ink that I’ve had the most fun sketching with. Fir & Fog is so excellent that it’s the first and only ink that I’ve written dry. Molten Basalt is an interesting alternative to black ink. Antler will be a useful sketching ink, and Myrrh the Merrier is delightful.

These inks almost made the cut, but there’s just something about them that made them a bit of a disappointment:

Marie Rose is interesting, but I found that I personally don’t enjoy using the colour. Laurel would be perfect without the extreme sheen, and Brrr! should have been a pigment ink and lost the shimmer.

Will I be doing Inkvent next year? Probably. It’s a challenging challenge to get all the reviews up, but in the end I do find that I enjoy the process.

What was your favourite Inkvent ink? Will you be participating next year?

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 25

The final day! The day we’ve all been waiting for! The day with a full bottle of ink in the colour of this year’s calendar (i.e. teal)! And they let the resident dad on the team name it…

Day 25’s ink is Diamine Myrrh the Merrier. I told you it was named by a dad – and a dad that’s very pleased with himself right now 🙂

It’s a shimmer and sheen teal ink, with blue shimmer and red-purple sheen.

This ink is pretty, it’s got character and shimmer and sheen – but thankfully it’s still a teal ink. You can see the lovely base colour beyond all the pizzazz.

I have been using Myrrh the Merrier for my journaling and general writing for the past three days, and it flows well for a shimmer and sheen ink. Yes, if you leave it uncapped for a while you’ll have a hard start, but for a sheen and shimmer ink it’s been impressively well behaved.

Sketching and writing sample on Apica CD paper

You can see the sheen, but you can also see the ink colour.

This year’s final bear is Candy by June Kendall, a one of a kind British artist bear.

As opposed to last year’s day 25 ink which was disappointing and an ink that I don’t ever see myself using, this year’s Myrrh the Merrier ink is delightful and actually fun to use.

That’s all for the individual ink reviews for this year’s inkvent. In a day or two I’ll post my summary post, discussing the calendar as a whole and highlighting some of my favourites.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 24

Day 24’s ink is Diamine Antler, a raw umber (i.e. brown) pigment ink. This is the perfect classic shade of ink for sketching, and I can’t wait to use it with my watercolours.

Diamine Antler won’t be a favourite for everyone, being a brown ink, but it’s a useful colour for sketching, and it’s an interesting brown. It’s “flat” in terms of shading (or in this case, lack thereof), but the colour itself has a hint of red in it, and yet isn’t a strictly warm colour. It’s hard to explain, but if you’ve used raw umber in sketching you’ll know what I mean.

Today’s bear is Braeburn, the only bear that I’ve ever bought online. He was part of a limited edition series that Dean’s Rag Book Co (my favourite bear makes, now defunct) issued, with each bear themed around a species of apple. This fellow is Braeburn:

I will be testing out Diamine Antler with some watercolours. I think that it could be a good ink to have in rotation – provided I don’t already have a similar pigment ink on hand.

Did you like Diamine Antler or was it too boring and brown for you?

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 23

Day 23’s ink is Diamine Let it Snow, a turquoise ink with chameleon shimmer. It’s a lovely ink (turquoise is my favourite, and it’s utterly appropriate for this year’s inkvent) with some nice shading as a bonus.

Here’s a closeup on the magical chameleon effect:

I had issues with leaking with this ink. I’m not sure if it’s the ink or the pen, but the result was very messy. I’ll be keeping an eye out on this one, and maybe testing this ink a different pen. I tested in a fine nibbed Lamy Safari that I’ve had and used for years without issues. In any case, the ink itself is nice, and it shades even in a fine nib:

Sketching and writing sample in an Apica CD notebook

Today’s bear is a German bear from Clemens Bears – a relatively big manufacturer. He’s number 667 out of 777 and he’s called Keoki. I love his puppy like face and his paper hat.

Setting aside the leaking issues, I love Diamine Let it Snow. I think the colour is perfect, the name is perfect and the chameleon effect and the shading make it an interesting ink. What did you think? Did you have flow issues with this ink?

Diamine Invkvent 2025 Day 22

Day 22’s ink is Diamine Pineapple Spritz, a mustard coloured pigment chameleon ink. While I guess that the name is appropriate (I don’t drink so I’m not very familiar with cocktails) I really wish that it was just a pigment ink and not also a chameleon one.

If Pineapple Spritz was a pigment ink it would be an interesting ink to sketch with. Yellow tends to disappear in watercolours, but also still have enough presence to affect the drawing – a bit like red does. As it’s a chameleon ink as well it’s going nowhere near my watercolours and my brushes. The last thing I need is glitter stuck on everything forever.

Since I wasn’t going to use this for sketching and because Diamine Pineapple Spritz is both a pigment and a chameleon ink, plus it’s yellow (which tends to crystalise), I just opted to test this by dipping a Pilot Metropolitan medium nib in it, rather than filling the pen and dealing with cleaning it later. Because it’s a mustard yellow it’s fairly legible, and would work decently well for greeting cards and highlighting things. In that case though I’d prefer it to be chameleon only, as the pigment property doesn’t add much and it will make it more difficult to clean out the pen.

Today’s bear is also a Holbins Bear, hand made in England. Her name is Fiji and her sweater has a tiny crochet flower on it.

I personally don’t find a need for an ink in the shade of Diamine Pineapple Spritz. It would have been nice to try it out as a sketching ink if it was only a pigment and not a chameleon one, but as it is I don’t ever see myself using it. What do you think?

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 21

Day 21’s ink is Diamine Chaos. That’s right – Diamine Chaos. This is a dark purple, almost black ink, that’s “extreme sheen” – which means you basically see green sheen everywhere. I’m flummoxed by both this ink and Diamine Energy back in day 2. They both feel like Halloween inks more than Inkvent inks.

This ink isn’t brown, but the effect of so much golden-green sheen makes it appear to be brown instead of the really quite interesting deep purple that it is.

There must be someone in Diamine with a particular kind of humor if they included this ink in the calendar, and then called it “Chaos”. It’s a bit of a cynical outlook on this time of year, but I’m here for it.

Writing and sketching sample on Apica CD paper

How much sheen is “extreme sheen”? A lot:

Today’s bear is called Flippy. He’s made in England by Hoblins Bears, and he’s tiny and adorable.

Diamine Chaos feels a bit out of place in an Inkvent calendar. I wish that it didn’t have the extreme sheen effect, because the base ink colour is actually really interesting. As it is, you barely get to glimpse it under all of the golden green sheen, and because the ink is so saturated it will likely bleed through and show through all but the thickest paper. In short – it’s not an ink that I see myself purchasing.

Are you a fan of Chaos’s sheen? What did you think of this ink?

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 20

Day 20’s ink is Diamine Ambiance, a tomato red or orange-red chameleon ink with some shading. It’s an interesting colour, but also a peculiar one. It’s somewhere between red and orange, and for a chameleon ink with some shading to it, it’s somehow quite… flat.

Inks in this hue tend to have either zero shading or rather wild and striking shading, and Diamine Ambiance falls closer to the zero shading area.

Close up on the shading and chameleon effect

I’m not in love with the colour either. Diamine Ambience seems to lack conviction to me – either be a red, or be an orange, don’t be a wishy-washy in-between-er. I’m also not sure where the name comes from and how it’s related to the holiday/winter theme.

Writing and sketching sample on an Apica CD notebook.

Today’s bear is Pumpkin, by Maddy Aldis. It’s tiny but very heavy – filled with lead shot.

I used a Pilot Metropolitan with a CM nib, and yet the flow of Diamine Ambience wasn’t great. Inks in the yellow/red/orange range tend to have somewhat problematic properties – they tend to crystalize, for example. I’m slightly worried about this ink and I doubt that I’ll have much use for it so I’ll likely be cleaning it out of the pen soon. Overall, I’m not a fan of Diamine Ambience.

Did you like it?

Diamine Inkvent 2025 Day 19

Day 19’s ink is Diamine Overcast, a light celadon blue with pink hints. It’s a standard ink with some nice shading but it’s very, very light.

I used a Lamy AL Star with a fine nib and it was a struggle to read what I wrote at times. This is a lovely ink colour that needs a very wide, very generous nib to lay down enough ink for it to be easily readable on the page.

There is a potential for some nice dual shading with a generous enough nib – the swab clearly shows pink undertones that make this a very beautiful ink. They are completely invisible with a fine, and I’d guess also with a medium nib. This ink wants a stub, italic, double-broad nib or wider.

Because it’s such a light ink, it lends itself well to delicate shading. It is, however, not an ink I will ever see myself using regularly because it’s so light. This is one of the least practical inks in this year’s Inkvent.

Today’s bear is Sammy from Sambrook Bears. He’s a nice, tiny British bear and I actually like his sweater. I think it fits his personality.

The bear (the string leads to his name tag, not pictured)

I think Diamine Overcast is a lovely ink that I wouldn’t recommend to anybody, because it’s so light. There are those who will find use for it, particularly in wide nibs, but if you use medium nibbed fountain pens or finer, then you would do well to select a more legible ink.

What do you think? Would you use Diamine Overcast?

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