Your life is not a hero's journey-and that's actually good news. The Adventure Illusion helps you let go of misleading cultural narratives and find the freedom that comes from seeing life as it truly is.

William Irwin, Professor of Philosopher at King's College, USA

The Adventure Illusion offers a philosophically serious diagnosis of the nearly ubiquitous fantasy that life itself has the structure of a meaningful story. Gusman and Kleinherenbrink show how the temptation to read existence retrospectively as an adventure distorts our understanding of freedom, responsibility, and failure. What follows is an unsentimental account of contingency that nonetheless takes seriously the role stories play in our self conceptions.

Jon Cogburn, Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana State University, USA

As the pressure to present our lives as filled with adventures intensifies, this book offers a sharp and timely rebuke. Drawing on rich historical and cultural research, the authors show how the promise of a narrative arc structures - and constrains - much of the entertainment surrounding us, as well as our own lived experience. Kleinherenbrink and Gusman invite us to cherish the present and the essence of events, rather than treating life as a sequence of instrumental building blocks. In doing so, they offer a fundamentally different, more progressive way of valuing our time, attention, self-conception, and the incentive structures that shape us.

Marijam Didžgalvyte, cultural critic, and author of Everything to Play For: How Videogames are Changing the World (2024)