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frequentlyinfrequent's review against another edition
2.0
I think this book has an audience, and it’s not me. It may have been me five years ago, possibly, but as someone who’s always had a strong sense of my own morals—and who thinks about them purposefully all the time—this book didn’t feel like it added much. There was a sentence somewhere in the middle hypothetically asking whether the reader was a person who spends time deliberately learning new things that help shape their concept of right and wrong, saying that if the reader didn’t do that, then this book was for them. I’d agree with that, and kind-of wish it’d been spelled out like that in the description of the book before I took it upon myself to read it.
If my feelings about the book had been limited to the above, I probably would’ve given it three stars, but I did have a few real problems with it...
1. There are so, so, so many instances of the author using “his or hers,” “she or he,” etc. instead of “theirs,” or “they,” and this transphobic hold-out made me flinch every. single. time. I found it especially ironic when, after putting in that much effort, there was at least one instance where the author /did/ use the word “they” to refer to the same person/people that had just, moments before, been referred to with “she or he.” I believe I actually burst out laughing at that.
2. The author tries to stay away from giving “political” answers of things that are ‘morally right’ or ‘morally wrong,’ but his first and only example of “true evil” in the world had me questioning how old those people were, what their life situations were, how much of the truth they exaggerated or lied about in order to scare the kid who was likely much younger than them but was also likely more well-off than them. I suppose I have trouble with labeling people as “true evil,” at least with the details given.
3. The audiobook narrator mispronounced at least two words at least three times, and that was kind-of confusing. Not a big deal, and kind-of amusing, but also, ?
If my feelings about the book had been limited to the above, I probably would’ve given it three stars, but I did have a few real problems with it...
1. There are so, so, so many instances of the author using “his or hers,” “she or he,” etc. instead of “theirs,” or “they,” and this transphobic hold-out made me flinch every. single. time. I found it especially ironic when, after putting in that much effort, there was at least one instance where the author /did/ use the word “they” to refer to the same person/people that had just, moments before, been referred to with “she or he.” I believe I actually burst out laughing at that.
2. The author tries to stay away from giving “political” answers of things that are ‘morally right’ or ‘morally wrong,’ but his first and only example of “true evil” in the world had me questioning how old those people were, what their life situations were, how much of the truth they exaggerated or lied about in order to scare the kid who was likely much younger than them but was also likely more well-off than them. I suppose I have trouble with labeling people as “true evil,” at least with the details given.
3. The audiobook narrator mispronounced at least two words at least three times, and that was kind-of confusing. Not a big deal, and kind-of amusing, but also, ?
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