Ricky

Despite the effusive introduction, it's pretty clear that this book is Levin's first novel. It's a decent first novel, but I just thought it was okay, I suppose. In general, I thought it was sort of predictable. On one hand, I wish it had given more insight into the thoughts of villain, but I also like that Levin didn't try to explain him. Ultimately, sociopathy may be the result of some sort of deficits in the brain, so like the song says, “you can see no reason
Cos there are no reasons
What reasons do you need to be shown?”

I don't know. That I was distressed by the murders in the book is proof that the characterizations were effective, but I wanted something else. Perhaps the magic of Rosemary's Baby...

I find myself wishing a lot that people who write books like this would go to therapy before writing this sort of book because they are so tainted by the unresolved resentment that they carry based on their own experience. This experience of reading the book and being turned off by the author's unresolved resentments is exacerbated by listening to the audiobook in which the author seems to be perpetually sneering and expresses just about every other sentence with a sarcastic tone. I find it really off-putting and makes the book a slog. It feels like the book was written by a surly teenager.

Whatever is going on in non-fiction publishing lately is honestly frustrating. I'm always getting books because I want information and instead of having meaningful or useful information, I get hundreds of pages of somebody venting. This person has a PhD from a real university. There's no way this author doesn't know how to write better than what is in this book. It feels more like a screed on social media than an actual nonfiction book. The book is presented as being a book that would define autistic masking and present strategies for unmasking and 25% of the way into this book it's just a vomiting up of the author's attitudes about the political status of autism, the use of words surrounding autism, and weaknesses of the healthcare system. These are not completely irrelevant factors, but they are presented in a way that feels patronizing and unnecessary. The book reads like the diary entries I would expect someone to have written before they actually sat down and wrote a serious book. I just can't believe how many weird generalizations and blanket statements there are. I'm always wondering, do you have any evidence for this or is this all based on anecdotal experience and Reddit posts?

I really didn't expect this book to be as good as it is. I also found the author extremely likable which isn't something I can say for a lot of books I've read recently.

Never a good feeling when you are reading a story about the rise of the Nazis and it all feels like it was ripped from the headlines.

Almost three decades ago I set the intention to read all of Thomas Hardy's novels and really stalled out after reading four of his more famous ones. I picked up the challenge again in the past couple of years and I'm finally up to nine. This is such a nice change of pace from the tone of his other novels. It's funny what passes as a happy ending in the world of Thomas Hardy though. I was really amused along the way to see all of the elements that feel very Thomas Hardy but in a different kind of story. Not that it's that different, but the tone feels lighter and maybe more playful.