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A review by laneyofthenight
The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fisher
2.5
This book is billed as a history book, but it seems like the author can’t decide if he wants it to be a history book, sociology book, memoir, or commentary essay. He seems to have educated himself thoroughly on the aspects of addiction he talks about in this book, and then he sat down to write with no outline or forethought of what he wanted to say and why. It’s not bad but it’s also definitely not good.
The book is factually accurate on all fronts, but it does a poor job of communicating those facts across the board and relating those facts to each other in any logical way. It’s not driving any particular point home for me, nor am I sure what point it was supposed to drive home. It’s inferior in structure and and writing style to books like Dopesick or Drug Dealer MD, and it’s inferior in empathy, storytelling, and understanding to a more “traditional” (for lack of a better word) addiction memoir.
The book is factually accurate on all fronts, but it does a poor job of communicating those facts across the board and relating those facts to each other in any logical way. It’s not driving any particular point home for me, nor am I sure what point it was supposed to drive home. It’s inferior in structure and and writing style to books like Dopesick or Drug Dealer MD, and it’s inferior in empathy, storytelling, and understanding to a more “traditional” (for lack of a better word) addiction memoir.