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mmmcgowan's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
meredith_w's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
An excellent collection of essays about reformative justice, mercy, and compassion. I already want to read it again.
hannahbananali's review against another edition
4.0
A strong collection of essays revolving around the idea of justice. Definitely interested in reading more from Johnson.
huncamuncamouse's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
This book started off really strong, but I found my interest waned in the middle. The unifying theme for this collection is the idea of justice, and while that through-line carries the book, I still found that this book felt a bit cobbled together. Like any collection of stories or essays, some pieces are stronger than others, and this book is no exception. I had mixed feelings about the essay on the BP Oil Spill. It was probably the best essay in the whole volume, but I found it felt disconnected from the rest of the book, despite fitting under the theme of "justice." It almost seemed like the basis of a new book.
I really enjoyed Johnson's first book, too, but my biggest complaint about that book carries over to this one. I'll paste from my review of the Other Side. "I found that the way the Notes were handled completely took me out of the book--which was so beautifully and compellingly written––ruining the trance that I felt when reading. First, none of the notes were numbered, so it was a tedious task to try to match up the passage perfectly with the corresponding note (and sometimes there was more than one note per page). Footnotes seem like they would have been much more useful, since the notes are not functioning in a way that simply provides a reference one might choose to follow up on (or not). Instead, the information provided in the notes is so critical, you'd miss key details if you skipped this section (as some readers may be apt to do)."
This book started off really strong, but I found my interest waned in the middle. The unifying theme for this collection is the idea of justice, and while that through-line carries the book, I still found that this book felt a bit cobbled together. Like any collection of stories or essays, some pieces are stronger than others, and this book is no exception. I had mixed feelings about the essay on the BP Oil Spill. It was probably the best essay in the whole volume, but I found it felt disconnected from the rest of the book, despite fitting under the theme of "justice." It almost seemed like the basis of a new book.
I really enjoyed Johnson's first book, too, but my biggest complaint about that book carries over to this one. I'll paste from my review of the Other Side. "I found that the way the Notes were handled completely took me out of the book--which was so beautifully and compellingly written––ruining the trance that I felt when reading. First, none of the notes were numbered, so it was a tedious task to try to match up the passage perfectly with the corresponding note (and sometimes there was more than one note per page). Footnotes seem like they would have been much more useful, since the notes are not functioning in a way that simply provides a reference one might choose to follow up on (or not). Instead, the information provided in the notes is so critical, you'd miss key details if you skipped this section (as some readers may be apt to do)."
dpkloster's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
liz_beth83's review against another edition
5.0
This book was breathtaking. Powerful, smart, moving, thought provoking. I have never beed a fan of essays, but I loved this. Her writing is like magic. The topics were big and ugly and she stared them down with grace and poetry. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
jaclyn_sixminutesforme's review against another edition
5.0
Video review: https://youtu.be/Ap3l9R8aaV4
lauraportalupi's review against another edition
2.0
Could not finish this. Decided to stop midway through essay 4 (“On Mercy”). I really wanted to love this book, but I found the overwhelming number of depictions of violence too disturbing. It is one thing to engage with images/accounts of violence if they compel me in new ways to action, but to me the presentation felt more like a collection of all the worst news stories consolidated in one place. I’m already agonizing about the state of the world on a daily basis, so the additional observations were not novel, but more or less a reflection of what is already going on in my head, which I don’t need or want to further indulge.
Thank you to other readers here whose detailed reviews helped me decide to stop reading.
Thank you to other readers here whose detailed reviews helped me decide to stop reading.