Edit: Yay for the HCPUnion ratifying their contract! I don’t really have a review for this book. It was a fluffy read when I needed one, but I found the plot mostly annoying 

Holding reviews on HarperCollins books until the HCPUnion gets a fair contract.

Learn more: https://linktr.ee/hcpunion

I found I Feel Bad About My Neck funny, and while I saw other reviews complaining that Ephron didn’t acknowledge her privilege, it hadn’t bothered me. Most stories about her wealth and whiteness in that book I’d thought were somewhat tongue-in-cheek or even self deprecating. But in this book… oof. She goes from harassing a likely minimum wage employee of an obviously understaffed movie theater to a list of “25 things people have a shocking capacity to be surprised by over and over again” including “Muslims hate us,” (Who is “us,” Nora??) then she is complaining about a waiter who is too attentive. Even her stories about Newsweek felt blinding white and obviously lacking in any thought of intersectionality.

I found it strange that the audiobook did not include the notes that were mentioned at the end that provided alternatives to the stories that were used here, especially as Keefe makes clear at the end that he is not a historian and this is narrative nonfiction. After realizing about a third of the way through that this was not published as a history book and that Keefe left journalism to work in the Pentagon as a policy advisor to the USA Defense Secretary before writing Say Nothing, I started to wonder why readers should trust his opinion on which tales were more likely true over others. As a work of narrative nonfiction, it could have had better flow. Listening to the book, it gave the impression that it wanted to be taken as solid history despite the holes in source material available and the potential prejudices of the author.

Edit: Yay for the HCPUnion ratifying their contract! I was really looking forward to reading this, but I found Caroline so annoying and the writing really repetitive. The concept of the apothecary was intriguing, but the modern vocabulary in the 18th century was distracting and even there the plot felt flat. As someone who studied history in college, the lack of understanding of how research or academic publishing works,  Caroline’s carelessness with artifacts, and just a the baseline misrepresentation of how to access research libraries or databases bothered me. Not to mention visas and applying to grad schools abroad is not a one day activity… 

Holding reviews on HarperCollins books until the HCP Union gets a fair contract. 
Learn more: linktr.ee/hcpunion

Edit: Yay contract ratification! This book was beautifully written. I’m excited to go back and do more in-depth work with my chart using this guide. I always loved how Chani ties in current events in her horoscopes, so it was surprising to have  Frida Kahlo as an example throughout the book given the renewed conversation about her appropriation of indigenous cultures, but perhaps this conversation is more visible in 2022 than it was when the book was being written.

Holding reviews on HarperCollins books until the HCPUnion gets a fair contract. 
Learn more: linktr.ee/hcpunion 

Should have been titled Annoying People