Aimed as an introductory text for undergraduates, what this isn't is perhaps what you might expect it to be : ideally, you would be looking at a crash course introduction to the ways in which we think, with an emphasis on the positive, the optimistic. At times, certainly, positive thinking is a power that enables and helps. But also, there is a time when positivity becomes a self-deluding prison. In this brief, somewhat dense text, occasionally filled with the kind of general balderdash and bizarre maps that both seem to be flavour-of-the-month, and all the cynics to decry as nonsense, Boniwell explores the psychology of positivity but in a way that doesn't necessarily work for those who feel that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and also, fears that this is true. For this to work for those who have a cycnicism, it must have a different approach, grounded in practical ways to live your life. For me, at least, it doesn't quite have it.