Ian
I would give this a 3.5 if I could. excels at being a page turner and has some great ideas but reads like it pushed through a stock fantasy extrusion machine and the dialogue lever was set to clunky and repetitive. it reads almost like a ya novel
fascinating subject matter but the writing style was more academic than I was used to from Graebers other books and it made it a slog to get through at times.
predictable, schlocky, and obviously not written by s gay guy. but once I started reading it I couldn't put it down so three stars.
Generic dystopia/ya tropes mashed together and expanded to novel length with a stab at gender politics that doesn't really work. not expecting subtlety in scifi like this but it feels like the intended message smothered whatever compelling story was there, especially at the end.
followed brian on twitter and was excited to read this but ended up really struggling to finish it - history unfortunately was pretty repetitive!
Excellent collection of bits and bobs but I had issues with the design in some places where the text was extremely difficult to read given the style/size
Why Always Wins coveres a lot of good concepts in a VERY compressed format. It's really text-dense and while the art is solid I'm not sure what being in the format of a graphic novel added to this. I wish topics were expanded on more or the book focused on one or two in depth rather than many very vaugely.
