Ricky

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?

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 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.

There is no other Troy for you to burn.

I liked the first half of this or so. The parts about their childhoods and adolescence were pretty engaging, but as the romance of their youth gave way to the machinations of the Trojan War, I became increasingly less interested. I think in the second half, the tension between the historic epic and the modern values that are imposed upon it felt increasingly awkward to the point where the whole thing kind of broke for me. Things just didn't really make sense after a while.

ETA: I wrote the below when I was frustrated about halfway through. I enjoyed the back half more than the first half but ultimately it reads like a cross between People magazine and a pop culture encyclopedia and I wish there were more depth and analysis. ********************

I've been reading this concurrently with the Big Brother book that came out last year. I have to say that book is a lot better written. It feels much better researched and considered. Much of this on the other hand reads like it was written the night before it was due. Survivor is a better show, but the Big Brother book is a better book. It would be nice if Taran wrote a book about Survivor that was as serious as his book about Big Brother. It's like he talks about the evolution of the game somewhat for the first few seasons and then basically kind of gives up. It would be interesting to have a more thorough examination of the evolution of game strategy.

One weakness of both of these books though is that they both present a very bro-centric perspective of these shows. It leads to a lot of eye rolls and general dissatisfaction.