“Man’s Search for Meaning” is one of the most cited works I come across in all my reading. When you see a work referenced so much you go straight to the source for a deeper understanding. After sitting with it for some time, I came away realizing this should be mandatory reading. It’s truth telling and enlightened perspective is so needed today. Viktor Frankl’s style is succinct and unapologetically candid. The book’s brevity is balanced by its profound & timeless wisdom born out of extreme suffering. His painful retelling of concentration camp survival guides us through unimaginable evils with a tone that almost pities the reader. Frankl’s experience is a bitter pill to take but it offers equal parts hope. Frankl also proves prophetic in his observations on American life and its bastardized outlook on the meaning of life. It makes sense then that Frankl is so often cited. Any work that explores the 20th century human condition or later would be wise to gleam from Frankl’s astute analysis of man’s search for meaning. Especially in the face of the escalation of horrors enacted on one another in the present age. I came away thinking that hope, meaning, purpose are all found in the maintaining of even the tiniest shard of agency over one’s self. Be it perspective, dignity, or more actionable things.

I do not agree with many of the author’s conclusions, BUT this is one of the great books written because of the efficient way in which some of the most horrific accounts of all time are described and how they were transcended.

This is an incredible story.

Some of my closest friends and I all started reading this book, mainly after our respective breakups or a loss of hope and meaning. This book played an essential role in equipping us with the knowledge to understand our feelings and head towards a brighter future.

Beautifully written book, in way and meaning.

This book is amazing, it’s definitely one of the best books I’ve ever read and it’s now my favorite. It really gets you to reflect on life and the inevitable trials that it comes with, and how it is through those challenges that you can find meaning in each moment you’re given depending on the attitude that you choose to have towards them. I also love when he said that the transitoriness of life creates the very challenge for us to do our best everyday — to live life actively not passively. This is a book I’d recommend to everyone I know!

This book ordered the chaos in my mind and soul. It was the perfect union of understanding the heart ache and trauma in my life. I took a more nihilistic approach, but this book gave me a path to overcoming and looking at my present pain as an opportunity, a way to prove that it wasn’t for nothing.

This book truly hits the soul, they don’t call it one of the greats for no reason.

This book is a wonderful contribution to humanity. Should be required reading in schools.

On of the best books I’ve read!