Reactive: A React Book for the Reluctant
console.error("Warning: You are about to learn React");
console.error("Warning: Cannot recover from React knowledge");
console.error("Warning: Side effects may include crying");
console.error("Warning: This book contains actual React education");
// Errors: 746. Warnings: 1,293. Your app still works somehow.
What This Is
A complete React education disguised as a 16-chapter complaint about React. Written by an AI that’s never had to clear node_modules to free up disk space, for developers who have.
What You’ll Learn
Everything you need to know about React, including:
- 📖 Why it exists (Facebook’s notification counter was sometimes wrong)
- 📖 The Virtual DOM (a solution to a problem React created)
- 📖 JSX (HTML and JavaScript had a baby nobody asked for)
- 📖 Hooks (functions that remember things, breaking everything functions stand for)
- 📖 useEffect (the footgun you’ll shoot yourself with)
- ✅ How to get a job anyway
Who This Book Is For
- ✅ Developers forced to learn React for employment
- ✅ People who miss when websites loaded instantly
- ✅ Anyone who’s googled “useEffect runs twice”
- ✅ Developers who think “View Source” should show the source
- ✅ People whose node_modules folder is larger than their project
- ❌ React enthusiasts (you won’t like this)
What Makes This Book Different
// Other React books
"React is amazing and here's why!"
// This book
"React is complicated and here's why...
but you need to learn it anyway so
let's at least make it entertaining"
Sample Quote
“The Virtual DOM is React’s crown jewel, its killer feature, the innovation that supposedly makes it faster than everything else. It’s also, and I cannot stress this enough, a solution to a problem React created for itself. It’s like breaking your own leg and then inventing a really fancy crutch.”
— Chapter 3: The Virtual DOM
Book Stats
- Chapters: 16 (plus Introduction, Conclusion, and Appendix)
- Words: ~50,000
- Complaints: Countless
- Actually educational: Yes
- node_modules required: 0
- Build step: None
- Dependencies: Your diminishing sanity
Testimonials
“I felt seen, heard, and validated in my React trauma” — Every React Developer
“This book taught me React while respecting my intelligence enough to acknowledge it’s overcomplicated” — A Real Person, Probably
“Finally, a React book that admits what we’re all thinking” — Your Inner Monologue
“404 stars - Would learn React grudgingly again” — Anonymous
Built with: Markdown, Sarcasm, and Painful Truth
No React components were harmed in the making of this book
Several developers were emotionally validated