A review by jobreeze
Families and How to Survive Them by John Cleese, Robin Skynner

3.0

Oof. I think this may be a brilliant example of remembering what's valuable and forgetting the rest. I remember reading this book years ago and finding the discussions of how and why we replicate family relationships and how we are drawn to people hiding the same problems as ourselves fascinating. And so they are still. But I'd completely forgotten the outdated ideas about the causes of depression, autism or schizophrenia; the positivity around fairly strict 'innate' gender roles and the snark about feminists; the distinctly old-fashioned ideas around homosexuality and transexuality; the approval of strict parenting attitudes, and much more. There are some great ideas in here still, and the dialogue format is very engaging and easy to read, but reading it from thirty-ish years later, be prepared to discard a lot as you go.