wajone 's review for:

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

1.0

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I adore Sarah Vowell, but this was almost unreadable. I have always loved her snarky commentary on American history, but the more she delves into complex historical events and tries to untangle them as an actual historian would, the more she loses her voice. So much of her exposition is flat and "fact-telling" that she loses the wry and insightful observations we expect from her. Hawaii has a unique and fascinating history, but Vowell gets lost in the facts here and doesn't have the historian's chops to interpret them with clarity and insight. I had to force myself to get through the plodding recitation of facts in hopes of getting to the Vowells trademark biting wit, which was much too sparse in this book.