A review by dgrachel
MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman by Ben Hubbard

informative slow-paced

2.0

I have long since given up any notion of the US having any sort of moral authority, so I'm not comfortable passing judgement on MBS as a whole. From this book, he has clearly made some policy changes that are good - some increased freedoms, and I'm a huge fan of separation of church and state, so moving away from a government so heavily ruled by an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam has to be a good thing. However, I can condemn human rights abuses, and any time you have a large group of the population who refuse to talk to "outsiders" or journalists because they fear saying the wrong thing and ending up in prison, tortured, or executed, there's a problem.

Subject matter aside, I found the text itself (or maybe just the audiobook narration) lacking. I was bored for much of the audiobook and likely wouldn't have finished it if not for a couple of reading challenges.