A review by notlikethebeer
The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning by Maggie Nelson

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.25

This is probably the kind of book that each reader will take what they want from. For me, that was some of the discussion right at the end of the book, about the ethics and implications of providing the voice of perpetrators, which I found fascinated and inredibly relevant, at least to my own interests! However that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the rest of it, or find it interesting/useful, as I definitely did, and have found myself applying some of Nelson's analysis since reading! My major criticism is that it was quite academic, which is a sad departure from Nelson's usual knack for writing in an incredibly engaging and readable way. And it was, in some ways, 'before it's time' perhaps in that the past 10+ years would have made for plenty of fertile ground - I frequently caught myself thinking "hmm, that's just like [insert recent event]"
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