Book review: Unflappable
Bastienne Wentzel
Jonathan A. Hutton is a very optimistic guy. Not in a glass-half-full sort of way, but really, thorougly, astonishingly optimistic. He has nose cancer, very rare and almost unheard of in 30-year olds like him. His memoirs, written up in his book Unflappable, tell his journey through treatment, cure, recurrence, repeat. And between all that he decides to learn paragliding.
Right from the start the book is engaging, asking the reader to think of an event that is lingering in their memory. "Now, consider what living through it has taught you. What did you learn from the experience? What are you still learning? I believe that suffering and hardship, unavoidable as they are, can teach us about ourselves, the sort of people we want to be, our priorities in life."
'Unflappable' is Jonathan's way of answering this question for himself.
In the first part of the book we get to know Jonathan before his diagnosis and right after. Jonathan has a talent to sketch a situation, treatment or recovery process in just a few words so that the description of his medical situation never feels like a lengthy recital of gory details. But the sheer amount of what he has to deal with made me cringe.
(...)
The full review was published in Cross Country magazine 261, November 2025.