Scan barcode
secrethistory's review
3.0
I enjoyed this book and found the ideas in it fascinating, and I’d like to read some of the author’s earlier work. I do feel that Covid-19 was shoehorned in occasionally (not every time), and it made the whole argument feel ridiculous at times. If something is going to be compared to the bombing of Hiroshima or Auschwitz, it needs to feel fully earned or it just falls flat. Some of the seemingly blind praise of some people seemed poorly thought out to me. I would have liked more nuance even with figures who largely performed well. The central ideas were very thought-provoking, however, and the more holistic treatment of the notion of survivor was welcomed, as was the emphasis on activism. A hopeful little read that places a learned but not naive faith in the human spirit in the face of atrocity.
gray_05_sea's review
2.0
This was a long essay, not a book, and I didn’t feel like there was anything new to offer.
skeltzer's review
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
2.0
This book ended really suddenly for me. I was waiting for more. Interesting reflections for sure but it seemed almost unfinished.
marinabkat's review
3.0
I do enjoy this form of nonfiction book, where a scholar collates their published manuscripts (which is a rigid, brief form to share generalizable knowledge) and combines them with their lived experience and connected ideas to nicely construct a nonfiction book. I do think with ethnography and mass trauma, we have to be conscious about the lived experiences that we do and do not claim (thinking about the first story about Hiroshima). I picked up this ARC because I teach an undergrad course in epidemiology, and I was looking for new books with epidemiological merit to build out a possible list of readings for their book report, and ultimately, this won’t make the cut. What I did appreciate was some of the little concepts—token words—that the author uses and shares. These are phenomena that I’d love to have operational definition for and measure.
More...