I love personality quizzes. I love finding out if I’m a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin, or if I’m a golden retriever or a chihuahua, or some other classification based on the thousands of online quizzes out there. The Myers-Briggs test, however, always seemed to me to be the gold standard. I can be a Hufflepuff at one quiz and a Slytherin at another, but no matter what, I knew I could count on myself to always be an ENFP. And when there are times I act in a way that doesn’t quite fit within that spectrum, I figure it was just a temporary glitch and, at heart, the Myers-Briggs result still holds true.

This is why The Personality Brokers was such an eye-opener for me. Merve Emre is skeptical of the science behind personality testing, and as I read more about the history behind its development, I found myself becoming more skeptical as well. Emre admits at the beginning that there were points in her research where she wanted to cheer the creators on — Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers were amateur behaviourists (no scientific or psychological training) who were women fighting to make a mark in a male-dominated industry and also working to make behavioural science accessible to laypeople. I didn’t know that the Myers-Briggs test was created by women, nor did I ever imagine it was created by non-scientists. (I had to confront my own unconscious bias, because for some reason, I was certain Myers and Briggs were a pair of old white male psychologists.) So, like Emre, I too began by cheering them on, and wanting to celebrate in their long-lasting success. And to some extent, I still do — both women created a very useful tool that can provide some insight into your psyche at a point in time.

But then I learned that the Myers-Briggs test actually began with a super religious and moralistic stance, Katherine Briggs trying to figure out how to develop a morally upright child and using her daughter as a test subject. Emre also reveals how reductionist and, in a way, stereotype-y the test evolves into, with companies actually using the test to determine if a candidate was a good match for a job or not, and militaries using the test to decide on whom they should hire for particular jobs like espionage.

I also learned of the racist and sexist attitudes of the creators, that have likely made it into the structure of the test. For example, Katherine (or was it Isabel?) often said that women were more naturally nurturing than men, and therefore better suited for a caregiving role. Isabel also wrote a detective novel where generations of a family committed suicide because of a mistaken belief in African heritage, and Emre wonders how uncritically Isabel addresses such beliefs. Granted, both women were products of their time, and cannot be judged by today’s standards, but a lot of the present-day test was created by Isabel based on her mother’s work. Their beliefs therefore raise the question of how much the test is shaped by a particular point of view, and how much it was tailored for a particular audience (i.e. white, middle class people of their time).

Reading the book has made me question how unthinkingly I’ve taken the test results as immutable fact, when that isn’t really the case. Emre raises a good argument that the test assumes personality is fixed and can never be changed, but studies show that people taking the Myers-Briggs test more than once can get different results. On a personal level, I may feel like the ENFP classification fits me now, but I can also easily think of times in my life when I would’ve thought of myself as fitting elsewhere on the spectrum. Perhaps it’s the mutability of Harry Potter-type Buzzfeed quizzes that’s more telling than a personality set in stone from birth.

As I said, I love personality quizzes, and I still think the Myers-Briggs test is good for understanding oneself at particular points in one’s life. But after reading The Personality Brokers, I realize how important it is to take these results — as with any personality test — with a grain of salt, and not rely on it too much to shape your life. Emre gives some examples of people who’ve changed their career paths because of their Myers-Briggs results, and while we don’t learn how it turns out for them, it’s also worth considering if a single test should be the basis of such big decisions.

The Personality Brokers is a fascinating book. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but Emre has a compelling writing style that kept me hooked throughout. I learned a lot about the history of personality testing, and the fascinating lives of the women who created this test with such an enduring legacy.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had mixed feelings about Life After Life and A God in Ruins, so I wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy her new book. Possibly it’s because it’s the most linear Kate Atkinson novel I’ve read so far, but I absolutely loved Transcription. The novel is about Juliet Armstrong, a producer of historical dramas on BBC Radio who is afraid her past as a transcriptionist and undercover agent at MI5 during WWII is catching up to her. The novel goes back and forth between the excitement of Juliet’s life during the war, and her more mundane reality of the present.

This book was so much fun, and the perfect story to lose oneself in. Atkinson recreates the world of WWII espionage so vividly that we are drawn into the adventure and glamour of that life as viscerally as Juliet herself is. War itself is horrific, but there’s a comfort in the effectiveness of the work Juliet and her MI5 colleagues are doing. For example, an MI5 agent creates a fake award that he bestows on his contact purportedly from powerful Nazi officers for her service to the cause, and it feels very satisfying to see such a hateful person be exposed as being so gullible. Such victories may be minor, even petty, but like Juliet, we can feel like they’re all contributing to an important larger cause, and we can understand why Juliet so badly wants to play a part.

Unlike other recent war-time books I’ve read that, honestly, felt a bit depressing at times, Transcription is entertaining and even funny at some points. For example, the code phrase MI5 uses for agents to recognize each other — “May I tempt you?” — often leads to hilarious misunderstandings in the novel, and Juliet often wonders why they couldn’t have picked a more distinct phrase.

The humour doesn’t mean that Atkinson shies away from the harsh realities of war. In fact, when things go wrong later on, and Juliet has to confront the violence — sometimes to innocents — caused by her actions, the horrific reality of war feels even more potent. Like Juliet, it’s all too easy for the reader to get caught up in the glamour, and lose sight of the true extent of the risks involved.

The story of post-war, radio producer Juliet is somewhat less compelling, mostly because it starts off with the more mundane reality of a dissatisfying job. The pace picks up somewhat when Juliet realizes someone from her past may be targeting her (for reasons we won’t learn until late in the book), but even then, it feels a pale shadow to the excitement of what was happening during the war itself. In a way, I think this may be a deliberate move on Atkinson’s part, and a testament to her talent at prose, that she’s able to use her tone to capture the youthful excitement of Juliet at MI5 and the more adult, somewhat disappointed Juliet who can’t quite find her footing after the war. Even as Juliet fears her pursuer, the challenge somehow gives her a sense of purpose, and we realize how much the work at MI5 has influenced her approach to life.

Transcription is a fun novel, perfect for fans of historical fiction and espionage. It doesn’t quite have the clever plot tricks of Life After Life and A God in Ruins, and I think that made me enjoy it so much more.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book 2 in the mystery series featuring park warden Jenny Willson, No Place for Wolverines features the classic standoff between big business and the environment. Jenny goes undercover at Yoho National Park in British Columbia and investigate the plans to turn the park into a ski resort, and inadvertently gets pulled into a murder investigation when a wolverine researcher in the area is killed in a mysterious fire. It turns out the plans for a ski resort also involve larger scale plans about a highway and the oil industry, all of which will have a majorly negative impact on the environment, particularly the wolverines who live in the area.

Wildlife conservation is something I’m personally passionate about, and so I loved the environmental stakes in this mystery, and the awareness it raises on issues of conservation and responsible land use. I also like the parts about Jenny’s relationship with her mother, and particularly how her mother’s depression impacts both their lives. I found their scenes together very moving, and that subplot had an intense emotional payoff at the end.

Overall, the mystery and Jenny as a series heroine were solid, but not particularly memorable. Jenny also didn’t quite strike me as tough or badass as some of the other characters said she was, though I did like how deeply she cared about her mother and about her community. I also wish there was a bit more nuance in the characterization — the profit-hungry bad guys felt almost one-dimensional in their villainy. Even though Jenny does make an effort point out the personal toll of debates such as that over the ski resort in turning neighbour against neighbour, I thought the different perspectives could have been explored more deeply.

Still, overall, it’s a solid mystery and a good, easy read. With the debate of big business versus the wolverine habitat, Butler does raise some important issues about the environment, and the often negative impact of industrializing a space for profit.

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Thank you to Dundurn for an advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review.