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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
It's kind of a memoir/self-help but for advocacy book. It doesn't fully step into either sphere which is dissatisfying. Maria's work and story are very commendable, though.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Made me eyes water, turned my stomach, forced a sigh. Listening to this audiobook was a physical experience throughout the body.
Marie Ressa can write-write, and she gets personal and political and weaves those two components so well together. She still feels like she's talking to people who are listening, not to crowds who are blinding adoring. I'm glad she's alive to tell her story, despite the many sacrifices she's needed to make, the intimidation she continues to face, and the absurdity and frustration walking the line she walks entails.
My one constructive criticism would be the hard line she draws between herself and the enemies of press freedom (in this case, it was frequently the PH government). "Don't fight monsters by becoming one," she says, and perhaps in her fight for truth and justice, she's needed to draw that hard line. But she ends the book be encouraging readers to take a step back when they start hating each other. To fight together, not each other, but I'm not entirely sure if it's always so clear.
Pilipinas. :'(
Pilipinas, I'm so sad and sorry for us.
Marie Ressa can write-write, and she gets personal and political and weaves those two components so well together. She still feels like she's talking to people who are listening, not to crowds who are blinding adoring. I'm glad she's alive to tell her story, despite the many sacrifices she's needed to make, the intimidation she continues to face, and the absurdity and frustration walking the line she walks entails.
My one constructive criticism would be the hard line she draws between herself and the enemies of press freedom (in this case, it was frequently the PH government). "Don't fight monsters by becoming one," she says, and perhaps in her fight for truth and justice, she's needed to draw that hard line. But she ends the book be encouraging readers to take a step back when they start hating each other. To fight together, not each other, but I'm not entirely sure if it's always so clear.
Pilipinas. :'(
Pilipinas, I'm so sad and sorry for us.
"You always have the choice to be who you are. I choose—as I always have—to live by the values that define who I am. I will not become a criminal to fight a criminal. I will not become a monster to fight a monster."
This book brings into sharp focus how so many political events in the last 10 years have led to putting the Marcos family back in power. I got the chance to know the woman behind the name—not only Maria Ressa's achievements but also how her relationship with journalism evolved over the decades through CNN, ABS-CBN and Rappler. It helped me understand the job in the PH context a bit more. Maria Ressa does something that takes more bravery than most of us are born with: she sees big problems and, no matter the cost to her private self, refuses to look away.
The book lays down in horrible detail what Facebook's violence-amplifying algorithm is doing to weaken democracies all over the world, starting with election experiments in countries like the Philippines (third world, heavy and unregulated social media use). It was an autopsy of the last few years; I relived the heartbreak of Duterte's presidency and Leni's May 2022 loss. Powers that take advantage of this will discredit, arrest, and even kill anyone who fights against what Ressa calls the death of facts.
It makes me want to delete my accounts and cut social media out of my life, but I can't do that now. To do that is like giving up to the big machine. She says we need to stay vigilant and keep our eyes trained right on the enemy, to call out disinformation, before it blinds us all.
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
informative
sad
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced