jiujensu's reviews
439 reviews

Great book! I loved her nonfiction so I took a risk. Braverman can do both! Sort of about a survivalist reality show... and more of course. 

You're Wrong About (podcast) listeners will recognize the Dyetlov Pass and Chris McCandless references. Great shows- makes sense that she was the guest now.

I'm drawn to these memoirs of women whose stories involve maturing beyond allegiance to God and war as they were taught in childhood. That, and growing up next to the top secret parts of that war machine.

I think the story was compelling - I kept reading past two in the morning to finish this story that just kept getting weirder and weirder. I gotta say I didn't see, not by a long shot, how the horror would keep increasing. I didn't think this was in that genre, lol. It took a turn!

But definitely content warning for rape, abuse, murder, incest and cannibalism. Yikes on bikes. I don't know that I would say I loved the storyline or many of the characters, but I couldn't stop reading it, that's for sure. 

On the surface, I suppose it's about unaddressed childhood trauma. I liked (initially anyway) the sort of detached view of everyone doing those very predictable things (school, marriage, kids) calling her town the factory and uteruses and testes components. It was Breakfast of Champions-esque that way. It's good to critique and think about behavior and goals society tells you is correct 

There's a very relatable theme about being an alien too. I'm sure we all have felt that way. Some more than others, though. Maybe that comes from PTSD, introversion, or neurodivergence - I think you could make a case for any/all AND either take the alien thing literally or figuratively. Is it horror or scifi? I couldn't tell you. 

There were super relatable bits but set in oddly mundane and horrific circumstances, this was a really wild ride. 

I think Life Ceremonies was the one recommended to me and Convenience Store Woman is supposed to have similar themes but go less hard. This was the one the library had. For whatever reason.

None of the myths were a big surprise but who doesn't like a romp through Republican lies and race neutral language that effects a racist outcome. American Exceptionalism and Founding Myths were a good start, American Socialism will surprise the crap out of some, The Magic of the Marketplace and Reagan Revolution were sound debunkings. Family Values Feminism was an important one as well. 

Not bad topics, but as someone who keeps up with the news and reads about politics, nothing was super surprising. But it was a really good review of about 20 commonly believed things.

Along with menopause, she gets into supplements(!) - how they're unregulated, adulterated and unnecessary (unless by prescription for an actual deficiency). And good info on how to do your own research - red flags and such of sorting through medical advice. (Red flag examples - Pregnenolone steal, adrenal fatigue, recommend salivary hormone level test, antivax, do they sell supplements)

Great read. I was raised - or absorbed through the culture - to believe the misogynistic tropes of blaming everything on hormones and women becoming frail, useless, dirty, silly, fat, gross, and weak. Gunter encourages us to think in terms of value, agency, and voice and I'm here for it.

Hm. What to say. Possibly we've (as in white people) learned a lot since the publishing in 2016? As he's an NC author, I wanted to like this, but a white man writing black characters had all the problems you'd expect. Too much reverence for the slave owners, slave owner's wife, the Bible and other stuff white people like. The main character was raised by his own mother, families weren't separated, and he waxed nostalgic about food he ate and the slave owner's wife's gifts while living in the woods - it felt off, downright idyllic, totally unrealistic.

It's not that he's a bad writer - this is fine as an adult boxcar children sort of adventure story as far as the traveling from SC to NY goes - but just maybe shouldn't have been this subject. The descriptions of nature are fine and there are things he gives more details about, like snakes, that you can guess he might have an interest in. That was fun. The characters and slavery are presented a bit too cartoonishly - but you could look at this as maybe a dream or best case scenario of slavery and the escape?? Idk why you'd want to do that though. 

The female character or foil needs a bit of work. Lots of odd mentions of her size - fatphobic possibly. I don't know what the purpose of that was. To keep saying she breasted boobily maybe? The rapes were glossed over as though because she had to do it to survive, it didn't traumatize her. Her main characteristics were: not terribly smart, latched onto the main character oddly early even after his abandoning her 4x, dreamed of and loved shining her floor. I would've liked to see a female character with more depth and substance. 

Overall, Kindred by Octavia Butler and Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton would be better reads for this type of historical fiction and depth of female characters. I haven't read Fire on the Mountain by Bisson to see how it stacks up (he's another white guy, I think) but that's about the alternate history if John Brown's raid had ended slavery.

This book includes the Communist Manifesto in the appendix and has a section by section explanation to start us off. Not just praise, but criticism - and unlike many who get popular talking about this, no red scare Mccarthyite propaganda. The tendency in the mainstream is to associate anything Marxist, communist, socialist, etc, including the Manifesto with Stalin. Mieville will debunk this and other falsehoods throughout. The discussion of hate at the end was invigorating - it's not at the individual but the systems. 

And there's a great discussion near the end referencing Tad Delay about people having desire, not desire for knowledge - you can't fact check racist relatives into the light. We should have a little give in our belief (a band rather than a line) but still maintain values.

---loved this---
"Not that we should make a counter-fetish of uncertainty. To have fidelity at all to the project of this Manifesto, no matter how critically, is to be convinced of certain claims of which capitalism and its ideologues demand we remain unsure: that inequality and oppression aren't states of nature; that our social reality is controlled by the few; that it's so controlled in opposition to the needs and rights of the many; that we have the capability, at the very least, to make it worth attempting to change the world. That if we succeed, it will be better for the vast majority. There are minimum grounds for agreement without which comradely activity and radical analysis are functionally impossible. Some certainties and what we might call humilophobia can be liabilities for radical change, but not all."
---

I wouldn't call this the most accessible book. It was kind of a hard read. Though maybe my focus has been off. And my study was science, not humanities, so I often have to do more work to catch up there. But it's an important book for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness and overall sticking to facts over some weird anticommunist agenda so common today.

Older book, but the puzzling popularity and peril of supplements hasn't changed!

Pretty good basic info and mythbusting in the first chapters. I think it could be good in thinking about how to educate your kids about their bodies and sex - or yourself if you didn't get to take very much biology or life science in school. Good basic info. (For example: There are jokes about finding the clitoris in the zeitgeist, but i think a lot of folks would be surprised by the actual structure of it.)

Halfway through I got bogged down with every chapter being about a disease, symptoms, and treatment. Rather encyclopedic. The middle was tedious for that reason, but it's good info. Though if you didn't have much biology or sex ed in your schooling, it could be very educational. 

Ch38 Has a useful bit about how to describe things to your provider. Many patients will discuss a diagnosis, but you should stick to symptoms.

The last chapter was a bunch of old wives tales and pseudoscience to avoid, which was entertaining. And probably super informative if you don't hyperfixate on myths and pseudoscience already like I do.

He stresses intuition, so I have to say his Oprah recommendation, government and OJ trial told me this was going to be bad. The only reason I kept slogging away long after I wanted to stop reading in there first chapters was because it's frequently recommended in jiu-jiutsu or self-defense circles. 

While there were a few interesting chapters, I do not recommend this at all. This could've been a zine with some of his checklists as cute infographics.  

Some observations:
Too many cutsey little analogies crammed together.
Chapters 1-4 are mostly cringe. 
Chapters 5-7 are not wholly trash. Meh.
Chapters 8, 9, and 14 is his wheelhouse - he knows something about celebrity stalking.
DV section (Chapters 10-11) was victim blamey.
Chapters 12, 13, and 15 are cringe and meh.
Whole thing is hindsight is 20/20, examining these incidents postmortem while encouraging you to apply the several lists he uses in office analyses in the moment. Okay, guy.
Generally feels like individual solutions to systemic problems in ineffective libertarian style - except where he talks about his cases.

The last page was a nice optimistic send off - he hopes we aren't afraid. 

Those few chapters he spoke about his profession - cases he worked to predict a suspect's actions or thwart a stalker of an actress or Supreme Court justice were great. He abandoned his silly metaphor-heavy and rather condescending victim blaiming style and just told compelling stories.

I didn't find this terribly useful for the self-defense genre. Maybe that's because I'm reading it 26 years late? Didn't age well I guess. 

Better reading: 

Seconds Out: Women and Fighting https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55843975-seconds-out

Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women's Self-Defense Movement https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32561213-her-own-hero

She's a Knockout! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22620322-she-s-a-knockout

Real Knockouts 
https://www.amazon.com/Real-Knockouts-Physical-Feminism-Self-Defense/dp/0814755771?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=d663bbed-3f95-4cc1-82db-6c12fb340d46