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rinnyssance's reviews
439 reviews
The Sensible Thing by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4.0
There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
3.0
This is an excellent book for anybody looking to learn about horizontal differences between parent and child (whether it be physical or disabilities, crime or victim of crime). It's not an instructional book at all but tells a story. The prose were well written. the personal accounts were tactfully done. I was most impressed with how much work he did to put all of this together.
I was put off in the first few chapters despite how well they were written. Very rarely did he bring up poorer people with disabilities. Not everybody has the money to hire a night nurse or move across the country or start their own nonprofit for disability support. I would have liked to have read about how the lower class deals with those things. However, as I began to read more, there were poorer or PoC families. Unfortunately, most of them were done in crime and rape. That was way too convenient. Not to say there was some intended political purpose to this, but it would have been better had there been more balance earlier in the chapters.
The prodigy chapter was lazy. I was looking forward to it because I thought it would be something I could identify with, growing up as a gifted child in a family of people with an inner-city high school education or less. However, it was about kids who were good at playing instruments which was boring to me and very uninteresting. I skipped over much of the chapter.
Last thing is that a lot of his statistics were in that annoying "there are studies that have been done" type manner. Not sourcing anything as a point of reference, and it would drag on and on with in-speech citations. It wouldn't have heard to say "A study from the CDC suggests..." every once in a while, instead of going on with numbers I have no way of double checking unless I scramble through the back of the book to find what seems like the right source (I am using an ebook so perhaps it's different in the physical book).
There was something else I meant to say but it isn't on my mind right now. This book was wonderful nonetheless and I'm glad I took the time to read it. Stars taken away for the lazy parts of the story, but it's recommended to anyone who's interested in it. I definitely learned a lot.
The author is actually very brave and intelligent to have dedicated such a long time to the book and I appreciate it because I do notice the effort put into it. You don't see that in many nonfiction books these days, where PhDs phone their colleagues and cite their work in a compilation.
I was put off in the first few chapters despite how well they were written. Very rarely did he bring up poorer people with disabilities. Not everybody has the money to hire a night nurse or move across the country or start their own nonprofit for disability support. I would have liked to have read about how the lower class deals with those things. However, as I began to read more, there were poorer or PoC families. Unfortunately, most of them were done in crime and rape. That was way too convenient. Not to say there was some intended political purpose to this, but it would have been better had there been more balance earlier in the chapters.
The prodigy chapter was lazy. I was looking forward to it because I thought it would be something I could identify with, growing up as a gifted child in a family of people with an inner-city high school education or less. However, it was about kids who were good at playing instruments which was boring to me and very uninteresting. I skipped over much of the chapter.
Last thing is that a lot of his statistics were in that annoying "there are studies that have been done" type manner. Not sourcing anything as a point of reference, and it would drag on and on with in-speech citations. It wouldn't have heard to say "A study from the CDC suggests..." every once in a while, instead of going on with numbers I have no way of double checking unless I scramble through the back of the book to find what seems like the right source (I am using an ebook so perhaps it's different in the physical book).
There was something else I meant to say but it isn't on my mind right now. This book was wonderful nonetheless and I'm glad I took the time to read it. Stars taken away for the lazy parts of the story, but it's recommended to anyone who's interested in it. I definitely learned a lot.
The author is actually very brave and intelligent to have dedicated such a long time to the book and I appreciate it because I do notice the effort put into it. You don't see that in many nonfiction books these days, where PhDs phone their colleagues and cite their work in a compilation.