Cathy Barker

Painfully long

Revisado: 06-05-24

This author really, really loves his metaphors. Every other sentence contains the word "like," and he makes sure you suffer through each character's inner monologuing in every situation. Every tired literary trope trotted out and beaten over your head -- the badass military vet, the brilliant female scientist, the precocious child, the mindlessly evil Bond-type villians, the moralizing environmentalist lecturing, corporation-as-pillager-of-Earth, etc. I couldn't get past Hour #10. 18 Hours? You couldn't pay me enough to finish this.

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Tragic

Revisado: 10-04-23

Took a tremendous amount of courage, or audacity, maybe both, for an author to tackle this sort of subject matter.
The quality of prose is matched only by the appalling depravity of its main character, a middle-aged man who is sexually attracted to underage girls. Not merely underage but pre-pubescent.
He targets the 12-year-old daughter of his host family, grooms her, and eventually kidnaps her. He takes her on a long cross-country trip against her will and, without going into details, they begin a physical "relationship," which is really just a euphemism for serial statutory rape.
The poor girl is taken a second time and trafficked by an even more amoral pedophile, who also has his way with her and tries to coerce her into doing child p*rn movies. Her initial rapist finds her several years later, extracts info on the second pedo, then leaves her alone as she has started a new life without him.
The main character eventually murders his rival pedophile and is imprisoned.
The writing is outstanding and features some truly beautiful depictions of America's scenic places. However, the "protagonist" has some truly sick ideas about what he deems morally acceptable. In all likelihood parts of this confessional journal will leave you quite nauseous.
More than once, I considered not finishing as it made me very uncomfortable. I pushed through to the end. However, this was a one-time listen for me. Once was more than enough.

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He's right

Revisado: 02-01-23

most accurate portrayal of war economy and the brutal reality of battle you'll find

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Snoozefest

Revisado: 01-05-23

Nothing against the quality of writing but this one takes way too long to get anywhere. I fell asleep multiple times trying to finish it.

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Astonishing

Revisado: 10-29-22

Quite simply, one of the most important books I have ever read. Should be required reading in every high school

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A test of endurance

Revisado: 10-20-22

A recent scholarly interview centered around the themes of this novel had me revisiting it. I had forgotten how Melville liked to indulge in excessive detail and wordplay. You could easily cut this novel in half and eliminate all the chapters wherein he rambles on about whale anatomy, sharks, squids, etc and derive a much better story. The extremely long-winded tangents detract from what would otherwise be a great tale of self-destructive vengeance. If you do decide to give this a try, listen to it on about 1.5 speed and skip chapters 20-60. Seriously, there's about 40 chapters where nothing at all happens.

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Great story; not for sensitive types

Revisado: 05-18-22

Fans of "light" horror such as the "Twilight" series are wise to steer clear of this. Also, if you are squeamish about sexual content including pedophilia then go ahead and give this a pass. However, if you are mature enough to handle difficult and often graphic depictions of sadism and murder you will find this to be well written and worthwhile.
The protagonist is a kid who is mercilessly bullied in both verbal and physical ways by other students, his mom is a weak parent and his dad is a barely-present alcoholic man baby who rarely sees his son.
The child is befriended by a girl he meets at his apartment complex. She is fearless, doesn't feel the cold and only comes out at night. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what she really is.
The girl has a "father" who turns out to be a despicable pedophile who got fired from a teaching job and had his house burned down by angry townspeople. He and the girl have an extremely unhealthy codepency wherein he provides her with food in exchange for allowing him to be near her physically. He fantasizes about, well, having sex with her and other boys.
Some readers will get upset about his recollections of past sexual encounters with children, which are indeed gross but are left mercifully vague in their description. Let's just say the guy isn't a very successful pedo, he thinks about it a lot more than anything.
Don't want to get into spoilers, but almost none of the people are what they seem. As the relationship between the boy and girl deepens, events start to spiral out of control and nobody escapes unscathed.

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an essential, important work

Revisado: 07-14-21

Should be required reading in every school, especially here in America. Just like "A People's History" imploded the myth of American exceptionalism, this book implodes the myth of war's nobility and righteousness. War is all-consuming and brutal, leaving physical and emotional ruin in its wake. Hedges brings this knowledge to bear through his own long struggle with war's potent addictive highs.

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