Overall, this book was entertaining and provided an interesting lens to re-evaluate stories that I was already familiar with.

I found his treatment of the Stanford rape case & Sandra Bland very troublesome.

He spent way too much time describing the events from the perspective of Brock Turner. He barely slips in at the end his story was likely shaped by his lawyers and did not align well with his statements or actions at the time of his arrest. I just couldn't get my head around what point he was trying to draw with his strange teetotaler sentiment either. It's as though he was ready to conclude that sexual assault at college campuses wasn't an issue until binge drinking came into existence... what?

Sandra Bland was a bit more excusable, he makes a compelling case for how this specific vehicular search policy could have led to raised tensions. He mentions yet fails to address the many of other BLM adjacent cases that do not involve vehicles - just racism.

Edit:

re: teetolerism - I heard an interview with Gladwell earlier this week where he clarified that his position was to show that Turner was not just responsible for his actions but also what goes in his body/what happens afterward. If that was his intent, I don't think it was communicated very well. Most of the discussion of alcohol in this chapter is the cataloguing of every oz of liquor drank by the victim, the effect of binge drinking on women and other statistics focused around the victim.