Reviews and Comments

I'm pleasantly surprised that Tim is narrating his own memoir.

I bought this audiobook under the assumption I'd chosen the Johnny Truant book by the same name.

The first 1/3 to 1/2 of this book was good - a variety of characters who feel like they have secrets and motivations. Until you get to the end of the book and most of the characters never actually do anything.

What the hell was Sejal even there for? She's apparently there to provide a potential love interest for Doug, and it feels like there's a real secret she has... but that just doesn't go anywhere. She felt pasted in as an afterthought.

Out of interest, at this point, I did a quick scroll through reviews on other sites, and I'm not alone in thinking the first half was pretty good.

I'd put this one down for a while, and came back to it just before the author ventured into discussion of modern luddish principles. The author casts something of a wide net, perhaps wider than I would. They do point to some obviously illegal things not done out of any real Luddite principles, though maybe there is an argument to be made.

I really enjoyed this audio book, but I feel like it's barely touching on the subject. I don't think there were many deep truths here that weren't already widely known to any child of the 80s. Throwing to sometimes lengthy clips from the film and interviews with people involved.

This was written and released on a relatively short schedule, as the first movie itself was. It was read by the author, which is always my preference. I was happy to hear MJF sounding good, and happy to talk about the subject.

It's worth a listen, but I would have liked just a bit more.

The epilogue was nice to hear, though.

I started reading this nearly a year ago and it was just moving so slowly and perhaps was too reminiscent of real quarantines that we experienced just a couple years back.

This is one of the hardest books I've fought my way through in recent memory, but I think that's largely me, and covid that have made this difficult.

It's well written and definitely conveys much of the feel of a city shut down as happened in 2020, decades after it was written.

The characters are well described and motivations, such as they exist, are also outlined well. Some people break down, perhaps not just the weak. Situations like this where control is absent, the end is unpredictable for many.

Characters die, for no particular rhyme or reason, just as happens in life.

I'm not clear on why the narrator's voice was a big secret throughout. While I didn't guess, the answer makes sense, though any other surviving character would make sense as well.

I don't know what it is, but this is one of the books I've had to really work at to drag myself through. I've let it sit for months, reading a stack of other books that seemed to blaze past. Maybe it's that it feels all too non-fiction since 2020. Tonight I read two pages and then a couple of "important tasks" came to mind, so I went and did those instead.

There's nothing WRONG with the book, and I like it, but I'm just not connecting with these characters despite everything being set up perfectly for me. I'm trying to finish it before I open a new book, so if I can just focus tomorrow I might get this done.

I was relieved to find that this massive book is a collection of a hundred or more expert voices on climate and not the work of a single author. Greta's voice coming in to bridge between essays, to draw connections, etc, is a really great choice. I really like this as an audio book, but I'd surely have highlighted it heavily in paper or epub

I read this because I wanted to find out more about the case that was brought against Reality for espionage. The news I saw of this in Europe was minimal -- all I really knew was that there was a seemingly inept attempt to leak american secrets.

I didn't realise the secrets were contained on just five printed pages.

I appreciated the life stories to provide background, but I'm left feeling like the important things were raced through and the trivial parts of the story had their own chapters. Nearly the first half of the book is prologue, and the last 1/4 is Orange Is The New Black: The COVID Years.

There's a fair bit of non-linear telling of the story after the author is taken to jail, and it gets tedious after a while. Maybe that was intentional.

I'd opt for a 3.5 for the book were I able to give half stars.

I read this because I wanted to find out more about the case that was brought against Reality for espionage. The news I saw of this in Europe was minimal -- all I really knew was that there was a seemingly inept attempt to leak american secrets.

I didn't realise the secrets were contained on just five printed pages.

I appreciated the life stories to provide background, but I'm left feeling like the important things were raced through and the trivial parts of the story had their own chapters. Nearly the first half of the book is prologue, and the last 1/4 is Orange Is The New Black: The COVID Years.

There's a fair bit of non-linear telling of the story after the author is taken to jail, and it gets tedious after a while. Maybe that was intentional.