QUIET POWER

The author of the bestselling Quiet (2012) collaborates with Mone and Moroz to bring her message of empowerment for quiet types to teen readers.

Cain opens by placing introverts on “what’s called a spectrum” (an infelicitous term, considering its more common usage in psychology) with extroverts on the opposite end and vaguely defined “ambiverts” in the middle. She goes on to draw from her own experiences as well as those of psychologists and a dozen or so first-name-only teens to affirm that there’s nothing abnormal about preferring to work alone rather than in groups, thinking before speaking, being “differently social,” and needing a place to unwind in solitude. Along with assuring less outgoing readers that they have plenty of company, from Einstein to Beyoncé, she discusses distinctive “superpowers” that introverts can employ—specifically at school and in managing peer relationships—either for their own comfort or as coping mechanisms for public speaking and like stress producers. In her view “introverted” is not the same as “shy,” but these techniques will be equally useful to both sorts of readers. For those with short attention spans she closes each chapter with summary lists of points and behavioral tools (for those with even shorter ones, Web cartoonist Snider converts many to visual form), and she goes on in a pair of afterwords to provide guidelines for parents and make a case against forced participation in classroom discussions.

Standard-issue self-help: worthy enough but wordy and heavily earnest, addressed to a broad audience but unlikely to attract one.