Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

8 reviews

aileen_macalister's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

The book's main thread follows Naomi Klein and another writer Naomi Wolf, who's career path was so similar to Klein's for such a long period that the two are often confused. However, Wolf's life takes a dramatic shift to the right and Klein finds herself constantly "called out" for Wolf's views.

This leads Klein to look into the far right and conspiracy theories while also analysing references to doppelgangers throughout literature and history.

It is a fascinating window into the "mirror world" as Klein refers to it. It took me a couple of chapters to get into the book as she has to spend a good amount of time setting the scene and describing the similarities of herself and Wolf before she can get to the good stuff but once she gets into it the story takes you on an journey through this mirror world from Anti-vaxers to Palestine and everything in-between.

For me, listening to it as an audiobook made it so much easier to take in.

Overall it's an exploration into what it means to be a human in today's world and what "the self" really means.

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uranaishi's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.75


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peckreadsbooks's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative medium-paced

5.0


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katharina90's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

An interesting read that's particularly strong in its last few chapters where Naomi Klein illustrates the violent bigotry and genocidal tendencies inherent to Europe and its colonial projects.

The book is well written, covers a lot of ground and offers much food for thought. 

Trying to tie all of these topics back to the doppelganger motif at times feels like a stretch? I definitely lost the thread a few times but was captivated by Klein's meandering narrative nonetheless.

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madscientistcat's review against another edition

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challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0


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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

I don’t even know where to start. So many WOW moments for me (I don’t consider the following spoilers, but in case you might, feel free to stop reading here):

1. I had no idea the battle of the Naomis even existed. I was shocked to read about how far down the rabbit hole Naomi Wolf had fallen into, especially because I loved her book The Beauty Myth.
2. I was also shocked to read that Christiane Northrup had sold out. I used to respect these two women so much!
3. I was surprised that Canada wasn’t as free from extreme rightist politics as I thought.
4. I was puzzled as to why Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf, and Naomi Campbell would be confused. They are so very different women, and even if it’s an aggressive autocorrect, the first letters of their last names aren’t even anywhere close to each other on the keyboard!!

I laughed, even guffawed at parts. I blurt out “EW!” over and over. I applauded. I gasped. I scratched my head. This book had it all. And while I’m both sorry that Naomi Wolf’s mind and body has been kidnapped and replaced by an alien and that Naomi Klein has had to suffer for it, I’m glad it led to this book. And yeah, it was worth staying up all night to finish the book.

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mads_jpg's review against another edition

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challenging informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

4.25

I regret listening to the audiobook because there were so many sections I wanted to annotate the hell out of, so I'm gonna have to reread this once I've got a physical copy.

While this is a very zeitgeisty book, I think it'll age better than others, as it serves almost as a history book mixed with memoir mixed with psychology. 

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ranocchietto's review

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challenging dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5


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