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sophronisba's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.25
My main takeaway is that Jane Stanford was a piece of work, & I extend my heartfelt sympathies to the college administrators who had to deal with her. Way too much detail about Jane meddling with the inner workings of Stanford University. This was a bit of a stretch for a book -- It would have made a perfect fine magazine article.
paulaegraham's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
3.0
The author hates the culture and many of the people he writes about. Well researched, but darker than it has to be.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child death
vanessammc's review against another edition
3.0
A little too in the weeds about the ins and outs of Stanford took away from the mystery part. I guess all that detail about how Stanford was funded was important?? Didn’t completely get a sense of who Jane Stanford was except an unpleasant woman, or Bertha Berber for that matter.
probably_reading_right_now's review
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
This was a really intriguing concept! I had no idea Stanford University had such an interesting, and dramatic start, or equally as interesting and dramatic founders. I listened to the audio book version of this and I really enjoyed the way Christopher P Brown read the book. I did, however have a little issue with the writing it could get repetitive, and droning covering information multiple times making the book longer than it needed to be. The delivery of information was a little bland like just a series of facts were being stated rather than the author building a story, and the ending was a little frustrating. However I did find the story overall interesting, and this was clearly well researched, and a lot of time and effort went in to gathering the information to put this book together.