Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsI'm feeling magnanimous, so I'll call it "rushed".
Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2019
Tl, DR: This book was clearly rushed, and he either has poor time management skills (which I doubt) or he was under the gun to get it finished and start earning his cut, because throughout the course of reading this book, and most acutely as I got to the end, the word "slapdash" repeatedly came to mind.
Who is this books audience?
That is perhaps the most important question that can be asked about this text. Stein simultaneously tells us that what he's saying is important, while at the same time, undercutting himself, the messenger, and, nearly everyone else he encounters.
My mother-in-law read a few pages of the book and pointed out the confusing contradiction in him both making fun of "the [intellectual] elite" while also exalting their role, thus celebrating them. It's confusing to listen to someone undercut their own message. The question is why?
My answer was "once we figure out who his audience is, we'll know". And I think that's true. If we posit that (liberals, conservatives and moderates) are either "open minded" or closed minded, I think this book is targeted to open minded "conservatives", open minded "liberals" and, lastly, intelligent "moderates". I say that for the following reasons:
1. Closed minded liberals will find him too offensive to read.
2. Closed minded conservatives won't have any interest in what Joel Stein (a Time-magazine-writing, Stanford alumnis living in LA.) has to say.
3. An unintelligent person will never get past the gratuitous Latin, French, and occasional word salad masking itself as complex sentence structure.
So, that's who I think this book is for. And I think, if you're in one of the groups of people I mentioned might be in his audience, you'll probably find this book…amusing. Even though I probably laughed a few times, it's not comedy. Is it worth reading? Sure. It's definitely not worth what I paid though. Definitely not. Too many typos, and not entertaining enough.
Why'd I buy it? I saw Stein interviewed on the PBS News Hour, and he sounded like a smart, funny, irreverent guy, and, thus, naturally, I wanted to buy his book and encourage him.
Weaknesses?
I don't like that he finished every chapter with a transparent "here's a tantalizing tidbit of what's to come to segue into the next chapter, OH BOY!!" paragraph. Facile.
Typos, and poorly worded sentences galore. I wrote them down in the back of the book, and if the publisher is interested, I can produce them, but I don't see this book getting reprinted.
He gave up on the ending. You're reading along, noticing that there are only a few pages left, when Joel Stein sneaks up on you from the front with sledgehammer in hand and clocks you in the chin with his point.
Unfortunately, he didn't have a point. He tried to make one, but either didn't or couldn't, so all I'm left with is the part after he stopped telling the narrative. The "moral" or whatever you want to call it of this book (because there's no moralizing here, and calling it a "denouement" implies that there was tension to be resolved, which there really wasn't) came with the subtlety and grace of the last five minutes of an ABC sitcom about a working class family: Cue music, and LIFE LESSON.
Ideally I shouldn't feel the ending of a book coming, and if I do, this is the moment where the author needs to give me his best work. You dropped it Joel. You spent too much time researching the subject and not enough time making sure the book was good. For your next book, get a side hustle to pay the bills while you polish it.
And that is the way of the world.
