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A review by emmareadstoomuch
Dreamland (YA Edition): The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
1.0
WHY IS THIS A THING.
Why is there such a thing as a Young Adult Edition of a normal nonfiction book?
I promise that people, like, age 12-17 or whatever do not need things dumbed down for them so desperately that it necessitates a whole entire separate publication. I swear.
I would never, ever, ever in a million years have picked this up, except it was sent to me by the publisher. I don’t feel obligated to read things that are sent to me without my request or agreement, but in this case, the topic is so important that I figured why not.
Honestly, I wish I had read 3-4 longform articles instead.
This was fairly unemotional and, to me, borderline unreadable. It takes stories of incomprehensible tragedy and renders them into facts and numbers and occasional one-off sentences about children and siblings and friends and parents left behind.
Worst of all, this contained a lot of sweeping, uncorrected prejudices inserted without nuance - stereotypes about people on food stamps, people with Medicaid cards, illegal immigrants, drug addicts, Mexicans, African Americans. Statements like “all ranchos hate black people” and “all rancho fathers hit their children” were referenced time and time again as if they were fact, rather than biased interpretations of a few cases as representing a whole.
Maybe this can be chalked up to it being the young adult edition, but I found it to be a reprehensibly conveyed work.
Bottom line: I can’t speak for the original edition, but if you’re thinking of reading this book - read basically any other source instead.
---------
the content in this book: very important.
basically everything about how it was written and formatted and relayed: not for me.
review to come / 1.5 stars
---------
just doing some light weekend reading
(thanks to the publisher for the copy)
Why is there such a thing as a Young Adult Edition of a normal nonfiction book?
I promise that people, like, age 12-17 or whatever do not need things dumbed down for them so desperately that it necessitates a whole entire separate publication. I swear.
I would never, ever, ever in a million years have picked this up, except it was sent to me by the publisher. I don’t feel obligated to read things that are sent to me without my request or agreement, but in this case, the topic is so important that I figured why not.
Honestly, I wish I had read 3-4 longform articles instead.
This was fairly unemotional and, to me, borderline unreadable. It takes stories of incomprehensible tragedy and renders them into facts and numbers and occasional one-off sentences about children and siblings and friends and parents left behind.
Worst of all, this contained a lot of sweeping, uncorrected prejudices inserted without nuance - stereotypes about people on food stamps, people with Medicaid cards, illegal immigrants, drug addicts, Mexicans, African Americans. Statements like “all ranchos hate black people” and “all rancho fathers hit their children” were referenced time and time again as if they were fact, rather than biased interpretations of a few cases as representing a whole.
Maybe this can be chalked up to it being the young adult edition, but I found it to be a reprehensibly conveyed work.
Bottom line: I can’t speak for the original edition, but if you’re thinking of reading this book - read basically any other source instead.
---------
the content in this book: very important.
basically everything about how it was written and formatted and relayed: not for me.
review to come / 1.5 stars
---------
just doing some light weekend reading
(thanks to the publisher for the copy)