buffna 's review for:

Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road by Kate Harris

2.0

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This book was recommended to me by a friend, so I hate that I don't like it at all. I stopped reading halfway through. Sections of the book felt over-written, the writing too self-absorbed, not even in a contemplative way but a self-obsessed way. Everything the character knows, instead of what they see, feel, hear around them, where they're 'boldly' trespassing into other places unscathed because of privilege. This book oozes with privilege. Privilege doesn't mean that a person doesn't or didn't work hard, but a lot of what they're able to think, do, and say comes from having advantages others may never even be able to attain through the hardest work. The pairing of this unaware privilege and self-obsessive knowledge of the world along with over-written passages was too much for me.