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A review by hannahstohelit
McMillions by James Lee Hernandez, Brian Lazarte
2.75
OKAY this is an odd one.
All 2.75 stars here are for the story, which is an insane one. That said, I liked it much better in the form of the documentary, which I watched after reading this book and thinking "HUH, this is probably better as a documentary than a book." I was right, it was.
On one level, I can't blame the book for not BEING the documentary, when it was my decision to read it despite having the relevant streaming service to watch it. On the other hand, I did think some elements of the book were kind of clunky/sloppy, especially compared to the documentary. The dialogue could be corny and the choices of what to describe in detail and what to let go in a sentence could be baffling, and the writing style was often somewhat irritating if functional. But all these things happen in this kind of book.
But most of the points off here are for the sources, because THERE ARE NONE. They mention working on this alongside a journalist, and I'd have assumed that that would mean that we get an index and/or a works cited page and/or endnotes, but NOPE. I have literally no clue how they know any of this stuff! Well, some of it clearly comes from recorded interviews, because some stretches of dialogue in the show go verbatim into the book. And in those cases, incidentally, sometimes the DIALOGUE is identical, but the way the book describes the way the conversation HAPPENED is not- in the book, a conversation is relayed as doubtful and hesitant whereas I watched the guy recount it to the camera as though it was confident and straightforward! I don't understand how that happens.
But some of it? I have no clue. And the dumb part is I can't even look up which parts, because again, no index! I'd have to go read the whole thing again. It's not even done in the same structural order AS the show, which might at least help me know where to look to compare, even if that's no substitute for an actual index. But here's the thing:
1) If something is in the book but not the show, we are left only to guess that the source is somewhere. And if something is in the show but not the book, then we know that by the standards of the writers it's on the record so why would that be?
2) Related to (and probably answering) 1, but then re-asking another question- you get a different experience watching someone speak than you do reading a third party author saying something. When you see someone speak, through their body language, mannerisms, etc you can then judge whether you believe them. With a book, where people's experiences are recounted as third person omniscient prose, you have absolutely no way of doing this. (Then, of course, HOW you film someone makes a difference to that too- in the show Robin is captured in a very particular setting and light, encouraging us to see her and her words a certain way, and the book describes her somewhat differently. Two sides of the same coin.) So that makes me wonder whether some things are in one version vs the other because some things could be substantiated by the journalist enough not to make the authors/documentarians liable for libel (presumably from Jerry Jacobson) and other things could not, but were acceptable risks when said by a person who was recorded saying them. I'm no lawyer and am now very curious about whether this is an element and if not, what else might be going on. BUT AGAIN- if that's so- why not include the sources used?!
3) Separately, totally forgot about this bit, but there was at least one very conspicuous part of the narrative in the book where we're given insight into the thoughts of a character who was physically incapable of being interviewed for the documentary. How do we know what this person was thinking? How?!
Basically, the story was fascinating but the book was thoroughly exasperating.
All 2.75 stars here are for the story, which is an insane one. That said, I liked it much better in the form of the documentary, which I watched after reading this book and thinking "HUH, this is probably better as a documentary than a book." I was right, it was.
On one level, I can't blame the book for not BEING the documentary, when it was my decision to read it despite having the relevant streaming service to watch it. On the other hand, I did think some elements of the book were kind of clunky/sloppy, especially compared to the documentary. The dialogue could be corny and the choices of what to describe in detail and what to let go in a sentence could be baffling, and the writing style was often somewhat irritating if functional. But all these things happen in this kind of book.
But most of the points off here are for the sources, because THERE ARE NONE. They mention working on this alongside a journalist, and I'd have assumed that that would mean that we get an index and/or a works cited page and/or endnotes, but NOPE. I have literally no clue how they know any of this stuff! Well, some of it clearly comes from recorded interviews, because some stretches of dialogue in the show go verbatim into the book. And in those cases, incidentally, sometimes the DIALOGUE is identical, but the way the book describes the way the conversation HAPPENED is not- in the book, a conversation is relayed as doubtful and hesitant whereas I watched the guy recount it to the camera as though it was confident and straightforward! I don't understand how that happens.
But some of it? I have no clue. And the dumb part is I can't even look up which parts, because again, no index! I'd have to go read the whole thing again. It's not even done in the same structural order AS the show, which might at least help me know where to look to compare, even if that's no substitute for an actual index. But here's the thing:
1) If something is in the book but not the show, we are left only to guess that the source is somewhere. And if something is in the show but not the book, then we know that by the standards of the writers it's on the record so why would that be?
2) Related to (and probably answering) 1, but then re-asking another question- you get a different experience watching someone speak than you do reading a third party author saying something. When you see someone speak, through their body language, mannerisms, etc you can then judge whether you believe them. With a book, where people's experiences are recounted as third person omniscient prose, you have absolutely no way of doing this. (Then, of course, HOW you film someone makes a difference to that too- in the show Robin is captured in a very particular setting and light, encouraging us to see her and her words a certain way, and the book describes her somewhat differently. Two sides of the same coin.) So that makes me wonder whether some things are in one version vs the other because some things could be substantiated by the journalist enough not to make the authors/documentarians liable for libel (presumably from Jerry Jacobson) and other things could not, but were acceptable risks when said by a person who was recorded saying them. I'm no lawyer and am now very curious about whether this is an element and if not, what else might be going on. BUT AGAIN- if that's so- why not include the sources used?!
3) Separately, totally forgot about this bit, but there was at least one very conspicuous part of the narrative in the book where we're given insight into the thoughts of a character who was physically incapable of being interviewed for the documentary. How do we know what this person was thinking? How?!
Basically, the story was fascinating but the book was thoroughly exasperating.