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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
I found this to be a very thoughtful and engaging philosophical journey. I enjoyed the author’s immersive revisiting of both experiences of past wrongs and deceit. I was impressed with how she handled their recollection with candor and transparency about her own relationship to them, then and now—even as the “now” continued to evolve. The book felt both personal and academic, and while I didn’t find it truly provoked much new thinking of my own, I really enjoyed coming along with the author on her own journey—especially in the creative ways that she shared that process in the final chapters.
slow-paced
The first part of the book about the high school experience felt pointless. Only at the end of that very long section did she come to the point that maybe there were lies involved. And even the second lie, while very interesting, felt overly drawn out. That this book is a "thriller" is absolutely untrue... the only thrilling part was hoping to get the part where the lies were revealed (which they barely were).
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
The memoir parts of this book were compelling, but the two storylines were fairly discombobulated. I probably could have lived with that, but the constant references to Plato's cave were so tedious and the philosophy dragged like nobody's business. The back third of the book totally fell apart for me with the combination of waxing philosophic, and weird dreamy imagined conversations and scenarios. It felt like when someone says 'let me tell you about this dream I had last night' and then traps you for 2 hours talking about the symbolism of teeth falling out and you want to cry. It's a bummer because the 'two lies' were interesting, if not as parallel as Viren seemed to want them to be.
challenging
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Sarah Viren's memoir reads more like a heart-rate increasing examination of truth and lies than perhaps a traditional memoir: she begins by trying to recall her high school teacher's unorthodox teaching methods (including teaching conspiracy theories in the guise of telling all sides of the story, while not engaging in information on debunking them) and how they affected her and other students in the class, only to be personally and devastatingly affected by a shadow campaign that spreads lies about her and her wife online to derail their careers.
How do you combat harmful untruths when all their spreaders need to do is plant seeds without any evidence, in the name of "just thought you should know"? This memoir may not offer clear-cut answers to that, but it's a dizzying, nauseating experience of living a life in our modern era of truthiness.
How do you combat harmful untruths when all their spreaders need to do is plant seeds without any evidence, in the name of "just thought you should know"? This memoir may not offer clear-cut answers to that, but it's a dizzying, nauseating experience of living a life in our modern era of truthiness.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
This is a thoughtful, interesting memoir, which links two stories in Sarah Viren’s life.
In the first section, Viren recreates her high school years, and she interviews classmates and other teachers, in order to verify her memories. Her focus is on a riveting, influential philosophy teacher who gradually fell into conspiracy theories, taking some of his students along with him.
The second section is even more riveting. This is something that happened to Viren while she was researching and writing the first section of the book. She and her wife Marta were professors who were applying for a job in a Michigan university, and an acquaintance who was after the same job started a secret campaign to discredit them. This person, “Jay”, impersonated a student who claimed to have been molested by Marta.
Viren writes like a journalist, carefully detailing every step in the process. First there’s the shock of being anonymously accused, and then there’s the long, excruciating process of clearing their names. Finally, once she discovers her enemy, she has to deal with her anger against him.
All this is against the background of the pandemic and the Trump years, when we were all dealing with constant political lies. The whole country was gaslit, in the middle of a health crisis. At times, Viren veers a bit, especially in the dialogues she imagines as the book comes to an end. You can see her struggling a bit with how to end it. But it’s a good book, and well worth reading.
In the first section, Viren recreates her high school years, and she interviews classmates and other teachers, in order to verify her memories. Her focus is on a riveting, influential philosophy teacher who gradually fell into conspiracy theories, taking some of his students along with him.
The second section is even more riveting. This is something that happened to Viren while she was researching and writing the first section of the book. She and her wife Marta were professors who were applying for a job in a Michigan university, and an acquaintance who was after the same job started a secret campaign to discredit them. This person, “Jay”, impersonated a student who claimed to have been molested by Marta.
Viren writes like a journalist, carefully detailing every step in the process. First there’s the shock of being anonymously accused, and then there’s the long, excruciating process of clearing their names. Finally, once she discovers her enemy, she has to deal with her anger against him.
All this is against the background of the pandemic and the Trump years, when we were all dealing with constant political lies. The whole country was gaslit, in the middle of a health crisis. At times, Viren veers a bit, especially in the dialogues she imagines as the book comes to an end. You can see her struggling a bit with how to end it. But it’s a good book, and well worth reading.
this was a fantastic book. seriously so well written and thought out, and a fascinating story. i was genuinely shocked by how engaged i was, given that i never read non fiction. sarah viren should be more popular as a writer, she is so talented!! i would honestly recommend this book to anyone.