beckyyreadss 's review for:

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

3.0

challenging informative slow-paced

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I decided to read this book because I bought a poster with 100 books to read in your lifetime. This is the twenty-second book on the poster. As with most classics and non-fictions, I knew I was going to struggle with it, and I did. I felt stupid thorough the whole book. 

The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene’s eye view of evolution – a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research. 

I never studied science pass high school level and honestly don’t care about the genes or anything like that. I read this book because it’s part of the 100 books. This book was a chore to read. I barely understood this book with all the fractions and the anecdotes, ended up confusing me. I did try hard to get into this book, but it just hurt my brain. It's probably a great textbook but as a book with no context, I was lost. A lot of the bad reviews are to do with the science of it, but I could not ask you if the science was correct or outdated because I have no clue.  

This book reminds me of why I mainly read fantasy or romance because my head was gone.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death