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korine's review
3.0
The other 3 star reviews are spot-on for me. Plus, I would’ve loved a greater analysis of the last decade and the switch to fentanyl production. That important recent transition received minimal treatment. Also missing was an overarching conclusion that summarized the threads and changes over the century covered in the book. I’m trying to do it in my head but would’ve appreciated some attention by the author who surely gave that a lot of thought. The impact of the legalization of marijuana in many parts of the US was mentioned in a sentence, but a projection of possible similar impacts of future decriminalization of other drugs was absent. Chock full of info but missing more in-depth analysis.
chachachuy's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.0
No estoy llorando, se me metió un narcoestado en el ojo.
Me agarró en curva el enfoque de pop history, esperaba algo más riguroso.
Me agarró en curva el enfoque de pop history, esperaba algo más riguroso.
annoeing's review
3.0
Ahahaha you can really tell that amid his researching, the author definitely got carried away watching a bunch of movies related to Mexican drug trading and passed it off as doing homework. Cause like you'll be reading pages of facts and true recounts and then suddenly the author would be like 'oh yeah this reminds me of this stereotypical mexican movie about trading drugs' and then proceeds to write a detailed - and sometimes over elaborate - summary of the whole movie (like those Wikipedia pages for famous films and stuff). And he also spoils them! Like he'll tell you the ending and everything lol.
I think what makes it the most ironic is that he also states at the beginning of the book and stuff about how these kind of movies and literature cause stereotypes which affect how accurate data surrounding drugs in Mexico are collected. So essentially he would talk and give a whole ass movie review only to be like 'anywaysss that's not relevant' lmao.
But idk this book is like super dense and it just gets a bit too much sometimes where the details become repetitive and starts to get jumbled up and stuff. There's alot of like anecdotes which are really interesting though.
I think what makes it the most ironic is that he also states at the beginning of the book and stuff about how these kind of movies and literature cause stereotypes which affect how accurate data surrounding drugs in Mexico are collected. So essentially he would talk and give a whole ass movie review only to be like 'anywaysss that's not relevant' lmao.
But idk this book is like super dense and it just gets a bit too much sometimes where the details become repetitive and starts to get jumbled up and stuff. There's alot of like anecdotes which are really interesting though.
andrew_russell's review against another edition
2.0
Given the subject matter, this had the potential to be compelling and explosive, instead of what it is - an info-dump that is as dry as old, crumbly biscuits. It speaks of why journalists sometimes (but by no means always) write poor quality long form non-fiction.