A Concerned Reader

A drudgery to get through

Revisado: 05-07-24

12 hours to get through this and only in the last few minutes does Olive’s character arc bend in the slightest. Unlikeable characters are fine and Olive seems initially like an interesting one, but I found very little content to be compelling about the story of her life and the frankly distracting and uncompelling other characters that inhabited this novel.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Painful to finish

Revisado: 12-09-23

Admittedly, its been ages since I've read a Michener book, so maybe my tastes have just changed. However, I found this book to be incredibly tedious, insufferingly racist and irredeemably boring. I had expected a story of the Oregon trail, but this is an overlong tale of a fictitious city that's supposed to somehow embody the "real story of the west". Fine and well, but that point gets lost in the telling. Too much unnecessary detail about fictitious characters and not enough actual content or context for me.

I suppose some will say the book wasn't racist in 1976, but when he describes characters by their racial characteristics or even that they go against one's expectation of stereotype's for that race, I'm reminded of the PSA they had on TV in 1976 when the grandfather corrected his young grandson for describing Jimmy as "my Jewish friend". Wrong then and wrong today.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Wow, that was awful

Revisado: 02-03-21

I really wanted to like this. I love American Gods , but this was just a hot mess. Hard to follow, thin characters. I couldn’t get more than 60% through it, I just gave up.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Been here, heard this...

Revisado: 05-24-19

I think this was suggested by Audible since I've listened to a number of similar books. However, for this reason, I find that this book doesn't really cover any new territory. I assume that the many 5-star reviews here are from folks who haven't listened to or read much in this area as I think Mr. Harari is largely regurgitating the works of others.

I was particularly annoyed by his insistence on using the word "myth" to describe intangible human creations. Myths are false and nonexistent by nature. The author should have tried a bit harder here and found a better word to convey his point. However, my sense is that he needed to create a bit of controversy to give fodder for argument from readers and reviewers.

He also makes a number of surprisingly unsubstantiated claims that would be easy to support, yet apparently doesn't find that necessary. I suppose that is because this book is written for the layperson.

Finally, I would suggest that both the author and the prospective listener/reader of this work consider spending some time with The Rational Optimist. This will alleviate the unsupported concerns in Sapiens about the travesty of progress, even the agricultural kind.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Voice changes are baffling

Revisado: 05-07-19

I loved the story, but I found the changes in the characters voices to be jarring. The Barron has a James Earl Jones sound in one chapter, then a fat Englishman's sound in another. Distracting and it jars you out of the story.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

What a Disappointment

Revisado: 09-16-16

Any additional comments?

I saw this won the Pulitzer, so I downloaded it without looking at the reviews. I wish I had. Hopefully this will save someone else from making the same mistake (and 40 hours of their life).

The characters felt like mostly cardboard cutouts, recycled from other books. The narration is first person and rather pedestrian. This isn't fine fiction, it's a story, that and nothing more.

The saving grace was the reader, who was excellent. Despite his efforts, I'd like the 40 hours I wasted on this back....

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

So, So Long...

Revisado: 03-03-16

Is there anything you would change about this book?

It drags, right from the start. I would have preferred a chronological biography of Sinatra's life. 41 hours examining every nuance and detail of the middle part of his career (maybe the book gets to the end of his career, I didn't finish it) was just far too much for me. Fascinating guy, but covered in far too much detail for me here.

How could the performance have been better?

The jumps in recording from one session to another and/or the subsequent edits aren't very smooth, they're actually quite jarring, with changes in tone and/or volume.

Was Sinatra worth the listening time?

Not for me, no.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

I tried, I really did

Revisado: 01-25-13

I really tried to get through this. I got almost 50% of the way there and just gave up. I think this got in my queue because someone (or possibly Audible) suggested it since I loved Malcolm Gladwell. While there are parallels, Gladwell's writing is far more compelling and he doesn't spend much of the book preaching in quasi self-help mode, alternated with anecdotes about famous "masters".

I also found it to be built on a logical fallacy - that you can only be happy/achieve mastery/follow your bliss if you move to your destined path, the one that is a fit for you. This is ridiculous. If I had accepted my abilities and shortcomings as they were, I never would have pursued my career; I had to become somebody slightly different than I was (or than I saw myself) in order to make this work. Greene implies that I'm in the wrong career path.

Admittedly, the biographical portions were interesting, but once he started to repeat them, it made the content seem all the more stretched and threadbare.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

I tried

Revisado: 07-20-11

I tried, I really tried to like this book, but I couldn't. I found the philosophy to be too obscure and the author never got hold of my with the fictionalized narrative (maybe he should have had John Galt ride cross-country? ;). I know people who really liked this book, but I just fought it the whole way.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Disappointed as well

Revisado: 05-03-11

I agree with many of the other low reviews, this book doesn't hold a candle to "Water for Elephants", almost seems like it was from another author. The characters cut from cardboard, the narrative predictable and trite - I could listen with "one ear" and still follow it because I knew where we were going. Gruen relies heavily on characters cut from cloth that's familiar to the reader and props them up with insipid dialogue. The story is interesting in a Michael Crichton-esque way, but doesn't even have his writing ability behind it (and that's saying something).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña