A. S.

Pure unvarnished Kara Swisher

Revisado: 03-04-24

As a long time reader of Swisher’s, the best part of the book is that it IS Kara Swisher, read by Kara Swisher, about Kara Swisher.

My only note is the mispronunciation of “cosplay”, hehe.

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Best memoir I've ever read, and that's all I read

Revisado: 03-28-23

It's hard to be more clear than my review headline, but I'll try and add to it:
Cheryl Diamond's story is SO many things, and written so incredibly beautifully. I had no idea what I was in for when I bought it, and I would continue to have moments of "I have no idea what I'm in for" at the end of nearly ever chapter.
I thought that I had a uniquely traumatic childhood, but by comparison, I feel like I had a golden upbringing.
What a powerful tale, it's so amazing that the person who lived it survived, let alone thrived.
Thank you Bujen (sp?)/Cheryl for sharing this with us. It's one of the best books I've ever read/listened to,
And that's considering that:
1. Autobiographies, memoirs, non-fiction is 99% of what I listen to on audible or read in book form.
2. I think this might be the first time I've taken the time to write a review.

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Nearly perfect Audible but, with VERY minor pronunciation errors

Revisado: 06-06-20

An absolutely addictive book, with a so-strange-it-can-only-be-true, I can’t recommend this enough. In this, the audible version there are just a couple of glaring — yet minor — pronunciation mistakes in some of Mara’s parts as to location names in the US, but otherwise a perfect listen.

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Wow. This is the truest story I’ve read of the baffling heartbreak that is addiction robbing a close family of a genius...

Revisado: 03-31-18

This book was for me so goosebump-inducing in its raw truth that I had to consume it in fits-and-starts. And the format of the book is brilliant as well and really left me inspired and hopeful for the author’s future creative/professional endeavors.
I was a big fan of Harris’s and his graduating class of comics such as Joe Mande, etc. But also having my own personal experience with opiate addiction and recovery from, as well as being the brother/son of same, I hesitated to check this book out. I worried it would be too hard/too real. That it would stir up sorrow and guilt and sadness. And while there was some of that, this book should be required reading for any family member (the addict included) who is in the midst of the chaos of addiction. This book does a perfect job communicating the helplessness on both sides of a serious drug addiction. And it also does what few other books on this topic do, which is reveal how opiate addiction in particular has spread insidiously into ever strata and facet of US society. Never before have we had the number of highly educated/seemingly-successful members of society with bright futures who simultaneously fight an internal struggle that can be fatal.
I normally don’t write reviews, especially with the difficulty of typing on my listening device (phone). But this book left me wanting to write the author, which i imagine would only be a burden.
Stephanie, you wrote a masterpiece, and I want to thank you for the perspective this lent me.

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Fantastic tale of engineering the impossible, with the added bonus of being a Cold War espionage thriller

Revisado: 12-24-17

One of the most compelling insider accounts I’ve read where the trial-and-error process of an engineering project is brought to life. You get a true sense of how human the iterative nature of building big projects really is. And that’s the part that’s as true in a software project in 2017 as it was then. The tools, problems and solutions are the only difference.

And if that doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, this story is also cloaked in enough Cold War spycraft to keep the average CIA history junkie sated. This book contains just as compelling an account of the twists and turns, near catastrophic failures and ingenious solutions to political and espionage roadblocks as in the engineering tale. And the entire story is woven together much more masterfully than this badly written review I’m typing into my iPhone.

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Story was a bit of a slog in places, which is appropriate to the historical subject matter

Revisado: 12-24-17

Like I said, the story of slogging through uncomfortable jungle and all the descriptions of physical and mental hardship made this one of those books I kept having to will myself to go back to.
But really, that, if anything just gives you a sense of what a masterful journalist David Grann is.

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Ugh! The skipping/repeating is INCREDIBLY irritating and distracting!

Revisado: 07-17-16

The book itself is great and the narrator is great but as others have mentioned, there are hundreds of "overlaps" where they screwed up in editing. A sentence will be read and then it will be read with an entirely new inflection -- clearly two performances poorly glued together.

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