CBR11 Bingo – Illustrated
I’ve been a fan of the Enneagram for years, but with its recent popularity rise, I’ve been entering into more and more conversations with friends and coworkers who are starting to explore this for the first time. This book is different than all the other Enneagram books on my shelf for a couple reasons, with the illustrations being one of them.
This is very much a beginner’s overview, and would be geared towards more of the casual enthusiast. Unlike some of the other deep dives, this doesn’t touch on some of the core principles of the Enneagram (each type’s core fear, childhood wound, etc). Instead, it’s more of a personality type overview. Each chapter starts with an inventory type quiz (after completing each inventory, you then compare your totals to gauge what type you might be), followed by some generic bullet point highlights. For each type, it gives lists of positives, negatives, what the wings could look like, where each type goes in times of stress or health, how these things manifest in work, relationships, etc, ways to grow in health for each type, etc. Most of this content is briefly laid out, in point form, with the illustrations taking over most of the page in many cases.
The illustrations are simple line drawing characters, and to be honest, I was underwhelmed. I think there is a way to do simplicity well, and this missed the mark for me. It reminded me of a middle school project where something needed to be illustrated and the artist feels the need to draw SOMETHING for every point, instead of realizing that sometimes less is more. I’ve seen some really beautiful and impactful Enneagram art, and this was not that for me. (But then again, I’m a 4, so maybe others wouldn’t care as much about this as I do?)
In general, the book content was good for a beginner looking for an overview, but it misses much of the great aspects of this tool that you get by digging deeper into other texts. In my opinion, the illustrations didn’t add anything to the book, other than to add a casual vibe to the topic.