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julesenglish's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
What started as a quirky premise (what if you were continuously confused with another author who has opposing views) turned into a saga of reflecting on identity and all the ways we create other versions of ourselves. Naomi Klein deftly navigates through all of our golems within digital media, consumerism, politics, medicine, religion and even whole societies. She weaves through pundits, political thinkers, literature, pop culture and history to form a thesis. While listening to the book, I always felt that this was intensely researched, and that Klein came from a place of questioning, not authority.
What I absolutely adored about this book is that Klein not only made us think about our doubles that we create, but also kept returning to her place in and her contributions to this system as well. She is able to critically look at our society and critically look at herself, which not many writers who tell us they have "the answer" actually do.
Klein's nominal doppelganger is Naomi Wolf who is a former lauded liberal darling focusing on feminism turned gun totin', Steve Bannon's War Room correspondent. Klein has immense empathy for her "other" and truly analyzes the process by which we could have all slipped into the mirror world without excusing any atrocious and hateful decisions made.
This book is both intimate and broad in scope and I would absolutely recommend it to any friend.
What I absolutely adored about this book is that Klein not only made us think about our doubles that we create, but also kept returning to her place in and her contributions to this system as well. She is able to critically look at our society and critically look at herself, which not many writers who tell us they have "the answer" actually do.
Klein's nominal doppelganger is Naomi Wolf who is a former lauded liberal darling focusing on feminism turned gun totin', Steve Bannon's War Room correspondent. Klein has immense empathy for her "other" and truly analyzes the process by which we could have all slipped into the mirror world without excusing any atrocious and hateful decisions made.
This book is both intimate and broad in scope and I would absolutely recommend it to any friend.
lpleitera's review against another edition
I made it to 60% and couldn't take it any more. This is yet another book about political radicalization on the internet. I have already heard this story -- and more interesting/thoughtful versions of it besides. As a culture, we should stop incentivizing "extremely online" people from writing pseudo memoirs about all the bad ideas they encounter on the internet. Everyone, go touch grass!
bailey_philip's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
katharina90's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
An interesting read that's particularly strong in its last few chapters where Naomi Klein illustrates the violent bigotry and genocidal tendencies inherent to Europe and its colonial projects.
The book is well written, covers a lot of ground and offers much food for thought.
Trying to tie all of these topics back to the doppelganger motif at times feels like a stretch? I definitely lost the thread a few times but was captivated by Klein's meandering narrative nonetheless.
The book is well written, covers a lot of ground and offers much food for thought.
Trying to tie all of these topics back to the doppelganger motif at times feels like a stretch? I definitely lost the thread a few times but was captivated by Klein's meandering narrative nonetheless.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Colonisation, Violence, Death, Islamophobia, Ableism, Racism, Antisemitism, Genocide, Sexism, Police brutality, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Slavery, and Sexual violence
Minor: Dementia and War
prolocomotives's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
this took me a really long time to read but it was super interesting— love the doppleganger framework for understanding our world/history/politics