Reviews and Comments

Alex Cabe

CitizenCabe@books.theunseen.city

Joined 2 years, 1 month ago

It's not like I'm a preachy crybaby who can't resist giving overemotional speeches about hope all the time.

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Torrey Peters: Detransition, Baby (Hardcover, 2021, One World) 5 stars

A whipsmart debut about three women--transgender and cisgender--whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces …

Bold and Ambitious

4 stars

It was clear how much joy the author had in having the platform and she grabbed it with both hands to make the most of it. She had no fear of going after tough issues.

I enjoyed the different characterization of Reese and Ames, and the contrast between their experiences.

I don't need everything spelled out, but I would have appreciated a little more closure with the ending, especially with the book seeming to slow down in the last quarter.

Abrams Abrams Books: The Legacy of Yangchen (Hardcover, 2023, Amulet Books) 4 stars

Avatar Yangchen has succeeded in bringing a measure of stability to Bin-Er, but her successes …

James Bond in the World of Avatar

3 stars

The author wanted to write a James Bond novel and did a pretty good, twisty job in the world of Avatar.

This very much relies on the events of the previous novel, and doesn't to a very good job recapping them in the text. These are written to be read back-to-back, rather than as they were released.

Something about Yee's writing just doesn't grab me the way other books do. Even when I like the story and am interested, I'm not eager to get to the next chapter and his books are generally a slow read.

Crystal Hefner: Only Say Good Things (2024, Grand Central Publishing) 4 stars

A raw and unflinching look at the objectification and misogyny of the Playboy mansion, a …

Few Suprises

3 stars

This was basically what I expected, and a lot of details were given away on the podcast that made me decide to read it.

Crystal was vulnerable and lacked a strong male presence in her life. Hugh is a narcissist who lacked human connection and took advantage of vulnerable girls. Hugh lived what a teenage boy considered a fantasy but was ultimately pretty empty. None of that was a surprise, but it was interesting to hear the details. Crystal seems like a pretty good, ordinary person, but I would have liked to have heard some of the stories from other perspectives.

The writing was nothing special, but it was tight and logically arranged.

Timothy B. Tyson: Blood Done Sign My Name (Paperback, 2005, Three Rivers Press) 4 stars

"Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger."Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson …

Memoir-heavy history with a strong sense of place

4 stars

This was more of a memoir than the history/true crime book I was expecting and it connected well with me because the author gave such a strong sense of time and place. It spoke to my experience, but was a couple of generations and a region of the state removed, which made it simultaneously familiar and strange.

At first I was skeptical about reading a book on Black history written by a white author, but he was self-aware and reflective, and I think it's important that white people talk about race (as long as that's not all you read.)

I thought it could have been a little tighter. There were a lot of digressions. Not all of them contributed to the whole, and even some that did could have been organized or placed better.

I did appreciate the wider view on the civil rights movement, I wasn't aware of how …

Isabel Wilkerson: Caste (2020, Random House Publishing Group) 5 stars

Empathetic and Humane Exploration of a Tough Subject

4 stars

This overall did a much better job than the movie of explaining why the central thesis MATTERED, although I think I may have enjoyed the illustrative stories more if I hadn't already seen the movie.

Most importantly, it gave me several mental tools for thinking about race and caste that will be very useful going forward. I think the tallness/shortness metaphor as a way of addressing unconscious bias will stay with me for a long time.

Some parts were less rigorous than they could have been and I think overstated causation, but that's a social science problem, not a this book problem.

David Grann: The Wager (2023, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) 4 stars

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a …

Well Written, But Fizzles at the End

3 stars

Very well written and, after a somewhat slow start, gets the reader very interested in the personalities and story. Cheap, Bulkeley, and Byron were all well drawn and distinct.

I enjoyed the novelistic history format and the tighter focus compared to Killers of the Flower Moon, and I was thinking four stars right up until the last fifth or so. The trial is a fizzling anticlimax. I get that it's a history book and Grann can't change what happened, but he chose the subject and the structure of the book. The trial felt like a let down after all the buildup of the shipwreck and the conflicting accounts.