lniles

Good concept ruined by thin social commentary

Revisado: 10-11-23

The author uses patients and events she encountered as an ER physician as a canvas for painting the picture of her grievances about the ills that she, and her race and gender more generally, have suffered. Broadly, those ills are very real, but the examples she uses to describe and define them are frustratingly poor. These are people with their own backgrounds, suffering their own ills -- cultural, chronic, and often very acute because, after all, they have ended up in a hospital emergency room -- but the author gives no consideration of those circumstances, forcing every aspect of their interaction to fit into the social narrative that she wants to portray. The author has sweeping, insightful realizations that purportedly are based on a single incident, yet she seems to have no insight into her own role. One aspect of racial power imbalance is illustrated with an incident involving a resident physician that the author is supervising. It is introduced with a derogatory description of the resident's physical appearance. The author then describes the resident's misunderstanding of an important point of medical-legal ethics and is incensed that the resident both doesn't correctly understand to begin with and doesn't immediately accept the author's explanation. The author's role here was to educate the resident, and that's what happened, but the author doesn't celebrate this, nor does she celebrate the fact that the resident did some investigation of her own rather than simply rolling over and accepting the word of the first "authority" who came along.
In the end, I couldn't finish the book because it was devolving into a rehash of common (and real!) social grievances without any real discussion of the hows, whys, or possible solutions.

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Back to the 1950s?

Revisado: 07-27-23

A group of neighbors, fueled by too much drinking, have a “naughty party” one night. Except it’s not really; it’s the impetus to send lives spinning out of control. Problem is, it’s unrealistic. There’s no real space given to considering any kind of non-traditional relationship. (Ok, there is one, but it’s a side story seemingly thrown in for no reason other than to keep the narrative from being even more Victorian.) In the end, the story comes across as a moral crusade and an almost religious appeal to the traditional family that was so widely depicted in 1950s television even while actual families were behaving much differently.

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An audio true-crime performance

Revisado: 11-15-19

It is somewhat interesting to hear the story in the words of those who were involved. But overall this audio book comes out like the soundtrack of a true-crime TV show - albeit a good one - rather than a reading of a well-written book. The story leans too heavily on anecdotes and recollections of the participants and misses some details of the how and why. The music in the background is unnecessary, at times distracting, and comes across as a poor attempt to infuse emotions that should be evoked by the story itself.

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Interesting, engaging, informative and accessible

Revisado: 10-04-19

John McWhorter is an excellent speaker, and the story he tells leaves me very intrigued with the field of linguistics.

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Interesting but not engaging

Revisado: 06-07-18

The story was interesting but it never quite pulled me in or became exciting. This was partly due to the organization — the timeline jumps around a bit which was sometimes difficult to follow in an audio book — but I think mostly due to the narration style. The narrator‘s voice is well-modulated and easy to listen to, but conveys all the excitement of a commentator for a televised golf tournament. The voice doesn’t communicate anything of the emotions of the characters or of an observer, nor does it tell the listener anything about what’s important and what’s not. That said, the story did have me curious enough to finish the book even though I was aware of the limitations well before the halfway point.

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esto le resultó útil a 16 personas

Fluffy page-turner

Revisado: 05-02-18

A clever plot kept me interested, and surprised, all the way to the end. But the character development and setting development are pretty superficial and sometimes just not believable. All in all an enjoyable “read” but not one that left me feeling I’d learned anything or gained any insight into life.

The narrator is clear, well-modulated and easy to listen to, but sometimes seems unsure if he should attempt different voices for different characters or just maintain an even narration.

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The P&G Story

Revisado: 04-14-15

This book is all about the author's experience as CEO of Proctor & Gamble. It's a reasonably good exposition of a well-founded approach to strategy in that context, but there is virtually no discussion of how the approach might apply to other environments. In the end the book is a case study of the strategic decision-making process at P&G rather than a tutorial for a business leader.

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esto le resultó útil a 26 personas