 Can personality truly change, or are we stuck with the traits we were born with? In Me, But Better, journalist Olga Khazan sets out to answer this question with a bold, year-long experiment on herself. Using the Big Five personality traits—Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN)—as her framework, she explores whether deliberate actions can shift the way we think, behave, and feel. Because don’t we all want to feel better, sometimes? I was immediately drawn to this book after seeing that Gretchen Rubin had reviewed it. As a longtime fan of Gretchen’s work on happiness and habits, I was curious how Olga would approach the subject of personality change. I first discovered Me, But Better on NetGalley, and it arrived in my life at just the right time. As Olga says in her introduction, “Moments stack.” Oh, goodness, how they stack. One after the other like Legos we can’t avoid stepping on forever. Our thoughts, choices, and behaviors compound over time to shape our lives. Like her, I’ve felt the weight of certain aspects of my own personality, and I was excited to see what strategies helped her create meaningful change in her own life. The Science (and Reality) of Personality Change
I’ll say this, above anything else: Olga leans into the discomfort of her experiment. She doesn’t shy away from it - or from sharing her true thoughts - even once. Her hard truth is sometimes palpable on the page, and even as a reader, it was difficult to confront. Even a book can be a mirror, and the best ones are. I can only imagine how she felt, throughout the full experiment, and now, as her book publishes this month on the 11th. How the Experiment DevelopedAfter her introduction, Olga dedicated one chapter to each aspect of OCEAN, but not in the order you might expect. She began with the traits she most wanted to change, and which ranked the poorest on the Big Five Personality test she took directly from researcher Nathan Hudson’s website. Yes, I took the test, and my own results made me even more curious about how Olga approached each of the traits. Trait 1: ExtroversionAs an introvert, Olga began with extroversion. From improv classes to awkward networking events, she examines whether faking extroversion can lead to genuine personality change. She tackled this trait first—headfirst. I admire her tenacity where extroversion is concerned. Her commitment to dive into the deep end, to commit to this lifestyle in the ways that she did, told me just how serious she was about becoming a better version of herself. I was hooked. One of the most striking insights from this chapter is how social interaction can disrupt - even prevent - negative thought spirals. As she said, “Through all of this activity, I found that occasional extroversion can be a tool. It pauses the broken record of the depressive mind: Nothing rescues you from endless rumination like social interaction, even when forced.” Trait 2: NeuroticismOlga describes neuroticism as one of the most difficult traits to change—after all, anxiety and emotional sensitivity are deeply ingrained. She explores various methods to calm an overactive mind, including meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, and mindfulness practices. For every chapter, she speaks with many experts in the field of behavior and habits. She references conversations with Dan Harris and Jon Kabat-Zinn, as well as her own struggles with meditation: “Quieting the mind is impossible at times.” She routinely acknowledges the tension between wanting to change and feeling trapped by long-held emotional patterns. For me, one of the most relatable moments in this chapter is when she describes feeling happy, but immediately fearing that something will go wrong. “I was elated—but for the neurotic, happiness is always tinged with the suspicion that you’ll screw it up somehow.” It’s a relatable fear. And while this chapter did not end in the way I expected it to, the next few were impossible to put down. Traits 3, 4, and 5: Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness
Agreeableness, however, was an area she hoped to work on. She herself noted how she could be angry, blunt, skeptical, and resistant to small talk. But could she become more empathetic and agreeable, still speak up and participate, without feeling like she was smothering or losing herself? In addition to her experiences using Bumble BFF and Meetup, Olga volunteered to serve lunch to the homeless on a weekly basis. More than most, this chapter widened her understanding of what it means to be agreeable. Sometimes, it meant being disagreeable. Her last OCEAN trait chapter covered conscientiousness - a trait she was proud to score highly on initially at the beginning of her year long experiment. As she said, she was finally able to speak from a place of lived experience because she had already increased her conscientiousness years before. In fact, it was her passion for her future that did the trick. I know I appreciated reading through how she changed that part of herself so drastically. It also served as proof that the personality change she hoped to find within herself was one that she had already long accomplished. This sentiment shepherds nicely into her final two chapters. On Knowing When to QuitOne of the most emotionally powerful sections of the book is Olga’s exploration of when to persist and when to walk away. In self-help culture, people are often told that perseverance is key—but sometimes, quitting is the wiser choice. Olga captures that well. This chapter includes an emotional discussion of values versus goals. One I’m personally familiar with and advocate considering for anyone interested. She writes, “Values cast a spotlight on what’s important, and invite you to step in.” This idea - that understanding our core values can guide our decisions - feels like one of the book’s most lasting messages. I knew my own values before reading this book, but they cemented further in my heart. There’s little more that I could ask for out of the second-to-last chapter. Final Chapter, Final Thoughts: How to Keep ChangingIn the final chapter, Find Your Beach, Olga reflects on how to sustain personal growth over time. She emphasizes that personality change isn’t about rejecting who you are, but about expanding your possibilities. Ultimately, Me, But Better is a deeply engaging blend of personality science, self-discovery, and humor. Olga’s writing is sharp and honest, but she goes to great lengths to make psychological research feel accessible and relatable. While the book doesn’t offer a rigid step-by-step guide for change, it provides something even more valuable: a roadmap for experimenting with who we are and who we want to become. It provides hope. If you‘re curious about the psychology of self-improvement, this book is a continual reminder that growth isn’t about becoming someone else - it’s about becoming the best version of ourselves.
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 As I mentioned in my first blog earlier this month, I joined an in-person romance book club. In truth, it’s really my first one. I tried to join one online two years ago, but it continued to be rescheduled, and I have a very lovely and nontraditional book group chat running with two of my closest friends where we talk about what we’re reading. Sometimes, we even read what one of us highly recommends. I have a few other friends who I talk about books with, individually, which is just as fulfilling. Truly, I cherish each of them, especially since most of them live out of state. It was important to me to find an activity to do in-person this year - for either my reading or my writing - so you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover a local, more established book club at one of my libraries. Quick shout-out to all the libraries and librarians out there - please go support your own! I’d love to hear about the classes, programs, or books you find!
If anything, the story and characters resonated in this book. I choked up (okay: cried) more than once. Truth be told, when I read a certain plot point toward the end, I remembered why I wrote the book I did in 2015. How much of myself I wrote into that unpublished piece. Unexpectedly, I walked away from Lunar Love feeling raw and inspired again. Renewed, even. While I revealed Olivia’s career above, I won’t speak on Bennett’s role in the story to avoid spoilers… But trust me when I say, this leading couple venn-diagrams beautifully. Where they intersect, where they diverge. It’s a delicious friction, sometimes fraught and other times flirty. As characters, they were 3D from the very beginning. More than that, the circumstances of their interactions marries cultural tradition with modern progress in a way that invites readers to engage each, both individually and as one. For me, this thematically worked for the romantic nature of the book. The blend of their unique character worldviews, their careers and aspirations, their familial backgrounds, their astrological signs… These characters are complex, and because of that, I still think of them weeks after my book club discussed it. As a book club, we were pleased by how the characters met, how even that initial rom-com meet-cute convention defied our expectations for their roles in the story, the insertion of a plot twist in the first third of the novel that resolved a classic (albeit sometimes frustrating) plot device in romance books, and unanimously adored the ending - plot twists and all. Some of my fellow book clubbers expressed dislike for Olivia’s initial character behavior, but we ended up having a wonderful conversation about how that set up the perfect foundation for her growth through the last third of the book. Even moments we didn’t necessarily want to happen had to happen so that happily-ever-after was earned. And what an emotional payoff it was.
Lauren has two other books: Red String Theory, published last January, and Yin Yang Love Song, which publishes tomorrow! If any of her three books pique your interest, I recommend grabbing a copy. Her writing is lovely. I hope to read more of her work this year.
Well, that’s it for now. I’ve received the librarian’s book assignments for the next few months. February features A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane, so expect a review on that sometime next month. I’ve never heard of it - or any of the other books planned this spring - so I'm uncertain what to expect based on the description. I've read plenty of fantasy romances and/or romantic fantasies these last few years, but you never really know what you're in for until you crack the book open. But what's not to love about the prospect of another inked adventure? Until next time! |
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