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tsaucier's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
misha_ali's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This was informative, engaging, and a fantastic journey of discovery, both scientific and personal. When I started this book, I did not expect to be taken on a tour through the childhood of this young man who grew up to be a person most would categorize as a heroic figure, battling valiantly against science and nature to add order to chaos, only to end up breaking down the real-world harmful beliefs of this person. Lulu's own personal journey to find meaning is an engaging thread through the sometimes colder threads of science throughout this book and I love the way she's wrapped her own search for meaning into this book's research.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt
aubreystrawberry's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
ametakinetos's review against another edition
2.0
This was a memoir, biography, and philosophical endeavor wrapped in one.
...and each aspect suffered due to its bizarre partitioning in creating the whole. If it had prioritized, I believe I would have enjoyed it more, but its present state is disjointed, historically unfaithful, and oddly paced. The hoops jumped through to create the "twist" that Jordan was a raging eugenicist and a generally awful person felt bizarre next to her frequent conflations of his experiences and mindsets with the author's own.
Discussing the minutiae in terms of Chaos, taxonomy, evolution, etc. held little interest for me. While I sympathize with those struggles, the reasoning was circular. Everything came back around to a solution just as hopeless and impersonal as the last. If the world around us bears unfathomable change and chaos, constantly revealing our intuitions and ideas to be incorrect with alarming regularity - it is possible we were never meant to rely upon it for our satisfaction, yes? These labels will never bring us home. Even our beautiful webs of human support and compassion only take us so far.
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” - C. S. Lewis
...and each aspect suffered due to its bizarre partitioning in creating the whole. If it had prioritized, I believe I would have enjoyed it more, but its present state is disjointed, historically unfaithful, and oddly paced. The hoops jumped through to create the "twist" that Jordan was a raging eugenicist and a generally awful person felt bizarre next to her frequent conflations of his experiences and mindsets with the author's own.
Discussing the minutiae in terms of Chaos, taxonomy, evolution, etc. held little interest for me. While I sympathize with those struggles, the reasoning was circular. Everything came back around to a solution just as hopeless and impersonal as the last. If the world around us bears unfathomable change and chaos, constantly revealing our intuitions and ideas to be incorrect with alarming regularity - it is possible we were never meant to rely upon it for our satisfaction, yes? These labels will never bring us home. Even our beautiful webs of human support and compassion only take us so far.
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” - C. S. Lewis
rapport's review against another edition
The author spent too much time on their own childhood at the beginning, making brief references to how life changing the scientist was but no substance about why. Got really bored and kinda mad at how much the author was glorifying their interest in the subject without describing. Mom and lots of other people loved the book though?