This book and the underlying family reunion that the author is organizing (and structuring the book around) get away from him, but given the scope it’s hard to hold a grudge. A.J. Jacobs seems to hold the largest family reunion for his global extended relations, in hopes of proving that there is more that unites us than divides us, all while doing a deep dive into his extended family tree, in the breezy creative non-fictional style of his previous books. I got twisted writing that, so I don’t blame you if you got turned around reading it. Like I said, it gets away from him.
That said, it’s enjoyable, even as one gets the sense that a lot of the attitude is a put-on. As with Jacobs’ previous experiments (living healthily, living biblically, reading the encyclopedia) it seems as though he’s trying too hard to adhere to the letter rather than the spirit of his experiments, but that doesn’t mean they’re not interesting.
The tension between reading about your great-great-great grandparents and feeling a tie to history versus only caring about others once a personal connection to you has been established is addressed again and again. And Jacobs has a whimsical but empathetic touch in interviewing subjects who have found out via genealogy testing they’re not biologically related to their fathers, or married to cousins, so it’s hard to fault him for wanting to group as many people together as possible for a large “global family reunion.” But ultimately it’s those sections of the book that drag, and ironically, are the least connected to the narrative. Overall though, a fun read, as are all of Jacobs’ books.
