C. Perelli-Minetti

Powerful story - poor narration

Revisado: 05-15-23

A powerful, honest story about incest and it’s effects. Unfortunately, the narrator was not effective and distracted from the credibility of the narrative.

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Critically important

Revisado: 03-24-23

This is an important book, which really lays out how badly wrong our schools have gone over the past century as we moved away from more traditional content based education, which pretty much dominated schools, if not pedagogy and educational philosophy (insofar is it is not an oxymoron) through the first quarter of the 20th century. Those educated before WW II probably had a content rich public education, The transition took place over the quarter century from about 1950 to 1975. Those of us educated then got good, bad, or indifferent educations based on where we lived and how well-educated or concerned our parents were. Since then, it has really gotten bad, with only children from educated, involved families getting much content, as Ms Wexler describes.

Where the book disappointed me - as a parent and concerned citizen - is that it doesn’t lay the blame squarely where it belongs, on the fact that teachers as a whole don’t have the academic preparation or often the ability to teach a content rich curriculum, and on the unionisation and bureaucratisation of the profession. She is almost naively hopeful.

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Fascinating perspective on WW II

Revisado: 06-16-21

This is a remarkable, refreshingly unpolitically correct, take on the global war from the early ‘30s through ‘40s, which draws significantly on material available only since the opening of the Soviet archives in the 1990s, which in turn casts much other known but neglected information into a different light. It is well written enough for the general educated reader, but is a serious work of interpretive scholarship in its own right. As an historian I have a few quibbles, but would recommend the book without reservation. It’s helpful to already have some knowledge of WWII and the players.

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What a letdown! There was so much promise!!

Revisado: 08-10-20

I listened to this book with real interest, and found the author engaging. She seemed to be a bright young person who struggled with the inanity of post-modern political correctness because she was simply too curious and wanted reality and her world view to be at least congruent. Although she ultimately couldn't quite break free of the casual leftism with which her life had been imbured, I found her alternatively thought provoking, charming, naive and wise almost to the very end. If it hadn't been for the last 10 - 15 minutes or so, it would have been 4.5 to 5 star book. But, the ending seemed like it pulled the rug out fro under the whole thing! And not in a profound or meaningful way, but in being essentially a cop out, almost a caricature of Ecclesiastes. I can’t think of a single book I’ve read in my life that I liked so well until the very end, and then found left the taste of sawdust in my mouth.

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From the Great to the Bad and Ugly

Revisado: 02-29-20

I thought the first book The Juliette Society series was excellent - well-written and well-performed by the author. It was hot, and had a good story as well as great sex. The second book in the series was pretty good, still very hot, though it was a bit too much like the first book and hence was sometimes predictable. But still, kudos to Sasha Grey for keeping it going.

Then we get to The Mismade Girl, the third book in the series. Although there is some hot sex, the book is absolutely destroyed by its descent into unrelieved political correctness, simple-minded feminism, cheap leftist political conspiracy theory, and increasingly inane platitudes posing as profundity.

I wanted to like this book, but the slogging just gets heavier with every chapter. I think Pippa Jayne did a good job as narrator, especially given the material she had to work with. (Though I thought Sasha Grey the best performed of her own work).

If you loved their first book in the series, go ahead and listen to the second, but avoid this one like the plague.

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Didn’t really work

Revisado: 01-05-19

This book just didn’t work for me. Interesting premise, but all sort of rushed and jumbled in the last 1/3. I enjoyed the first two books in the series and had high hopes here. It felt rushed out to meet a publication deadline.

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Half right, Half exasperating, Ultimately Naive

Revisado: 09-24-18

I suspect much of the appeal of this book for what he calls ‘upper middle class’ listeners is Reeves’ almost RP accent - which conjures up evening spent watching Downton Abbey and the Crown. Well done, Richard.

Having the advantage of seeing American society as an upper middle class quasi-outsider - no educate Brit can ever be a true outsider in this land of adoration of most things perceived as British - Reeves is perceptive in describing what our upper middle class is in the process of becoming. He strikes me as profoundly naive, however, in conflating the earned privileges of the upper middle class with the still legally enforced privileges of the British aristocracy, even in its broader form that includes their non titled children and relations. We have no equivalent of the squirearchy or the monarchy, however much some would to have it in substance (though, of course, not form). He might well be on firmer ground if he saw (he may well, the book does not make the point) our growing bureaucracy based in Washington as something akin to the permanent Establishment of the British civil service. (Much of which, it should be noted, has worked assiduously over the past 50 years to thwart the policies of Tory prime ministers from Harold Macmillan to Margaret Thatcher and down to the present day. But I digress.

Where Reeves is exasperating are in his naive assumptions that his position is the morally superior, that all forms of inequality are ultimately inherently wrong, and in his almost touching commitment to a Jacobin, almost Marxian, notion of the perfectibility of human nature. For virtually all of his prescriptions for change are based on the notion that human beings will ignore what they perceive (accurately, he admits ) as their broader self-interest (i.e., including children and descendants) in order to support policies designed to ensure more (though not total) equality of result.

Moreover, perhaps because of ignorance of American history, Reeves seems to fail to understand that almost all of the things he cites, such as zoning, tax breaks for housing, standardized testing, etc. were originally progressive reforms intended in many cases to increase opportunity. He seems to have missed the lectures on the law of unintended consequences.

Again, it goes to his naivete, but perhaps Reeves' fundamental error is in seeing all of these barriers as intentionally created for the purpose of keeping the masses down.

That said, I think the book is useful for the honesty and clarity of the diagnosis. I’d love to give it a split rating: 5 stars for observation and exposition of his diagnosis, and 0-1 stars for moral preening and prescription.

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Anachronistic hoax avoid

Revisado: 06-26-18

Clearly a modern hoax. The language is anachronistic and refers to people who lived more than a century later. Worst book ever.

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Interesting material marred by snarky reading

Revisado: 01-11-17

What disappointed you about White Trash?

I don't know whether it's the author's writing or the narrator's tone, but the sefl-righeousness just oozes from this tome. It's an interesting topic, but one that needs to be approached from the historical context. The author seems to be judging the past by the standards of 21st century leftist academia. Very much takes away from the value of the book.

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Scary but important

Revisado: 06-11-15

Every American should listen to or read this short book. The threat is quite real.

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