maxmilkman's review

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adventurous informative tense medium-paced

4.5


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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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sonygaystation's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5


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imds's review

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4.5


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chandrajohnson1208's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

3.0

Clearly, Patrick Radden Keefe has done a tremendous job here, but this was a hard, hard read. I'm definitely done with nonfiction for a good long while now. Part of the fault is on me, because I thought the book would be more about the McConvilles and less about Dolours Price, but I was wrong about that. No fault of Keefe's, of course--just a dearth of information about the mother, especially, it seems.
Well-written, well-researched, and well done considering how unsatisfying the situation currently is, and how precarious its future. 

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