chelcie's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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bigheadcam's review

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

An absolutely incredible, fascinating, and perfectly paced narrative nonfiction on the Troubles. Radden Keefe is very careful to specify that this book is not "historical" nonfiction because a lot of the information in this book is derived from oral accounts. He did his best to reconcile these accounts by corroborating them with more official records and reports, but the Troubles are not well documented and were a truly chaotic time.

Radden Keefe's writing is objective and informative while also remaining gripping and maintaining an excellent storytelling tone. I was consistently impressed with how well he kept every subject covered interesting, and how he manages to switch contexts without losing the reader or making it jarring.

Thanks to John Oliver for recommending this on Hot Ones. I'd happily do the same for anyone with an interest in history, radical ideologies, revolution, and modern struggles for independence as well as the cost of said struggles.

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spess's review

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dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25


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lipliplip's review

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challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

5.0


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nitar8's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

4.0


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atalea's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

4.25


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laurenkimoto's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

Going into this my knowledge of the troubles was limited to Derry Girls and that small plot point in Criminal Minds, so to start I was a little confused (and I’m still not 100% confident) but overall was explained in an interesting and clear way. 

The audiobook gets a bonus 0.5 star (not included) because it is narrated by an Irish man and every time he said “poor” it added a week to my life. 

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meredith_peruzzi's review

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challenging dark informative fast-paced

4.75


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222abbi's review

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emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

This book is incredible, it’s a non fiction history book but reads like fiction. It is amazing how it is weaved together key characters from the troubles into a story. It sympathetically told a complicated history in a understanding, entertaining and enlightening way. It is genuinely such an interesting and engaging look at history and present. 

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travisppe's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Very interesting narrative, almost reads like a novel. 

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