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A review by sashagrons
Dressed Up for a Riot: Misadventures in Putin's Moscow by Michael Idov
3.0
Maybe like a 2.7, 2.8?
What worked: The most interesting thing I learned from this book is the way cynicism and apathy pervades certain segments of Russian society that *could* be mobilized to resist autocracy. This is how democracy fails (or fails to start): people don't care enough to protest, or think it's futile, or are content to take their material comforts and shut up.
What didn't work: For someone without much of a background on Russian politics, I was lost for much of the book. Name after name flew by without me having the context to understand who was who. It probably took until about 100 pages in that the story moved beyond background and into interesting parts of Idov's experience in Russia.
My greatest criticism of the book, though, was that I didn't take away any major point about Russia other than the author isn't sure how to feel about it, either. The author and his family move away from Russia but he feels...somewhat more Russian? Or at least less American? after the experience. I know that real-life narratives don't sum up neatly, but I wanted there to be a *point* to all of this, a truth about the world or about Russia that this book illuminated. But there was none. And so I am left disappointed.
What worked: The most interesting thing I learned from this book is the way cynicism and apathy pervades certain segments of Russian society that *could* be mobilized to resist autocracy. This is how democracy fails (or fails to start): people don't care enough to protest, or think it's futile, or are content to take their material comforts and shut up.
What didn't work: For someone without much of a background on Russian politics, I was lost for much of the book. Name after name flew by without me having the context to understand who was who. It probably took until about 100 pages in that the story moved beyond background and into interesting parts of Idov's experience in Russia.
My greatest criticism of the book, though, was that I didn't take away any major point about Russia other than the author isn't sure how to feel about it, either. The author and his family move away from Russia but he feels...somewhat more Russian? Or at least less American? after the experience. I know that real-life narratives don't sum up neatly, but I wanted there to be a *point* to all of this, a truth about the world or about Russia that this book illuminated. But there was none. And so I am left disappointed.