Jeffrey M

Trying too hard to be relatable

Revisado: 01-09-19

I really wanted to like this book. I had read reviews of both it and the author’s later book, and I laughed at some who wrote that she was too casual or too flippant regarding historic events and tragedies. I was prepared for and welcoming of a book written in a fun, conversational prose.

Unfortunately, this book is in great need of an editor. The personal asides and pop culture references (already dated, by the way) are sometimes jarring and out of place. The reader/listener can easily lose focus because of these. A good editor could have allowed for the informal style of writing while getting rid of these personal asides and attempted jokes that just don’t work well in most of the contexts in which they are used.

In the end, the subject matter is interesting and the idea is a good one, but I came away from the book remembering very little of what I was meant to learn. Perhaps it would be better suited for a teenage girl, but agin, the pop culture references are already dated, so I’m not sure who would be the appropriate audience.

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Interesting but lacking content

Revisado: 08-06-18

There are a few good "stories" here, if you will, and in that way, it is a good follow-up to Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics. It is very, very short, though, and in fact the last two hours of this "audiobook" are just episodes of the Podcast. And if you are a listener of the podcast and read their work in general many of the statistics they site will seem familiar and like more of a "oh yeah, I've heard that someone" moment rather than "wow, really?" so that part was disappointing. Nevertheless, it was a quick and enjoyable book, but I wish I'd saved my credit and just waited for it to go on sale sometime.

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No climax

Revisado: 09-15-17

This book seems like it's building up to a magnificent confrontation and climax between the two sisters and the husband, but it all falls off at the end. It is short, so it guess it's not so bad, but it could've been so much better with some good editing on the existing writing and expansion afterwords.

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Boring, no point, poorly researched

Revisado: 11-19-16

I came across this with a quick search for something related to Georgia or Tbilisi. The writing is absolutely dreadful. I actually fell sleep listening to it in the middle of the day and had to rewind it. The story didn't make much sense even with one and a half listens. I wonder if this author just visited Tbilisi once and decided to use it in a story he wrote one night. Khatchapuri does not include herbs, and no successful Moscow businessman from Tbilisi started off selling pot there and certainly not ecstacy.

The writing is in no way vivid or thoughtful. It's full of boring adjectives and cliches. I commend and encourage people to write like this for practice, but there's a reason a story like this can't get published.

The narrators voice and accent in no way matches the text he is reading. I assume he's just a friend of the author. Avoid this thing.

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