Reviews tagging 'Death'

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

8 reviews

eliasaurus's review

funny informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

Hongoltz-Hetling does a great job of remaining neutral as he describes the town of Grafton's slide into libertarian pseudo-lawlessness. There's no mocking or derision; the antics of the town denizens speak for themselves.

This book is funny from start to finish. The only things detracting from a 5-star rating are the pacing (the author frequently takes a circuitous route around his point for the sake of a joke, which is fun but can get tedious), and the toxoplasmosis chapter, which, as others have commented, didn't really serve much purpose. That said, I'd definitely read this guy's other work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, and Gun violence

billievee's review

funny informative medium-paced

4.0

 The wild story of politics and bears in a small New England town. Hilarious at first, it slowly becomes depressing and rage-inducing as we see how the most vulnerable people (and animals) in Grafton are hurt the most by all the mismanagement. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death and Blood

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Pedophilia, Death, Animal cruelty, and Gun violence

lukereads97's review

funny informative fast-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Blood

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Ableism, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Alcoholism, Drug use, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Cursing, Excrement, and Incest

Minor: Colonisation and Adult/minor relationship

tiggum's review

slow-paced

I HATE this book. I'm absolutely certain that a really good book could have been written about these events and circumstances, so it's an absolute tragedy that this one was instead.

This book lacks any kind of structure or coherence. It jumps forward and backward through time, between different topics and narratives, from person to person, seemingly without rhyme or reason. It is impossible to follow any sequence, keep track of any individual, or place any event in time. The book reads like it was cut into pieces and pasted back together random.

The author injects his opinions and prejudices into the book frequently and obnoxiously, and makes no distinction between established fact and wild conjecture. The most egregious example is the entire chapter about Charles Nicolle's research in the early twentieth century leading to Hongoltz-Hetling's completely baseless theory that Toxoplasma gondii may be responsible, to some unspecified degree, for the behaviour of some or all of the bears and humans involved. It's pure speculation but presented almost as fact.

And each chapter begins with a quotation about bears, or that mentions bears, or that just has the word "bear" in it. These quotations don't relate to the subject of the chapter, nor to anything else that I could see. They're just there because the author liked them, I guess.

This book is infuriatingly bad. It should not exist.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Gore

Minor: Addiction, Drug use, Gun violence, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Drug abuse, and Pedophilia

goosegrimm's review

challenging dark funny informative reflective tense medium-paced

3.25

An interesting look into America's First Free Town, a libertarian political project that colonizes the New Hampshire town of Grafton. This book is more like a drive by in my opinion; Hongoltz-Hetling does a remarkable job creating relationships with many facets of the Grafton community and goes into depth about the history of the town (and of new england bears). However, I do think he could have gone more in depth into the meat of the Libertarian political movement. Its a complex, sprawling group, with apparently a genuine impact developing on the New Hampshire government. I would have appreciated more time spent unraveling the justifications Libertarians hold with unraveling laws and civic responsibility. Otherwise, Hongoltz-Hetling's dry wit and open engagement with the Grafton community was a welcome perspective into a dying town. As someone from a similarly tiny and resource strapped community, I appreciated the care evident in his writing. Plus, the bear discussions were very interesting and not at all what I expected. Overall, I would not really read this as a political book. While politics certainly plays a role, I think the book works a lot better as a window into rural life. And a very interesting commentary of how life works when you are surrounded by bears and all on your own, whether by choice or by circumstance. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Death, and Gun violence

mandkips's review

funny reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Animal death

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence

Minor: Ableism and Cancer

marrowe's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Suicide attempt

Minor: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Death, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Religious bigotry

katesigrist's review

adventurous challenging funny informative sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Death and Gun violence