Driving While Black
African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights
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Driving While Black
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Narrated by:
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Janina Edwards
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Gretchen Sorin
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By:
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Gretchen Sorin
About this listen
How the automobile fundamentally changed African American life - the true history beyond the Best Picture-winning movie.
The ultimate symbol of independence and possibility, the automobile has shaped this country from the moment the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford's assembly line. Yet cars have always held distinct importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road.
Gretchen Sorin recovers a forgotten history of black motorists, and recounts their creation of a parallel, unseen world of travel guides, black only hotels, and informal communications networks that kept black drivers safe. At the heart of this story is Victor and Alma Green's famous Green Book, begun in 1936, which made possible that most basic American right, the family vacation, and encouraged a new method of resisting oppression.
Enlivened by Sorin's personal history, Driving While Black opens an entirely new view onto the African American experience, and shows why travel was so central to the Civil Rights movement.
©2020 Gretchen Sorin (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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5 out of 5 stars
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Adolph Reed is a master.
- By Will Shogren on 06-07-22
By: Adolph L. Reed Jr., and others
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Franchise
- The Golden Arches in Black America
- By: Marcia Chatelain
- Narrated by: Machelle Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
Often blamed for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, fast food restaurants like McDonald's have long symbolized capitalism's villainous effects on our nation's most vulnerable communities. But how did fast food restaurants so thoroughly saturate black neighborhoods in the first place? In Franchise, acclaimed historian Marcia Chatelain uncovers a surprising history of cooperation among fast food companies, black capitalists, and civil rights leaders, who believed they found an economic answer to the problem of racial inequality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Window into Black Capitalism
- By Keith on 01-13-20
By: Marcia Chatelain
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30 Days a Black Man
- The Forgotten Story That Exposed the Jim Crow South
- By: Bill Steigerwald, Juan Williams - foreword
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 173
In 1948 most White people in the North had no idea how unjust and unequal daily life was for the 10 million African Americans living in the South. But that suddenly changed after Ray Sprigle, a famous White journalist from Pittsburgh, went undercover and lived as a Black man in the Jim Crow South. Escorted through the South's parallel Black society by John Wesley Dobbs, a historic Black civil rights pioneer from Atlanta, Sprigle met with sharecroppers, local Black leaders, and families of lynching victims.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Review review
- By bill steigerwald on 12-13-20
By: Bill Steigerwald, and others
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Black Birds in the Sky
- The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
- By: Brandy Colbert
- Narrated by: Brandy Colbert, Kristyl Dawn Tift
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 315
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 269
In the early morning of June 1, 1921, a White mob marched across the train tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and into its predominantly Black Greenwood District - a thriving, affluent neighborhood known as America's Black Wall Street. They brought with them firearms, gasoline, and explosives. In a few short hours, they'd razed 35 square blocks to the ground, leaving hundreds dead. The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in US history. But how did it come to pass?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible story and sooo well written
- By Deby on 02-17-22
By: Brandy Colbert
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Ida B. the Queen
- By: Michelle Duster
- Narrated by: Michelle Duster
- Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Ida B. Wells committed herself to the needs of those who did not have power. In the eyes of the FBI, this made her a “dangerous negro agitator”. In the annals of history, it makes her an icon. Ida B. the Queen tells the awe-inspiring story of a pioneering woman who was often overlooked and underestimated - a woman who refused to exit a train car meant for White passengers; a woman brought to light the horrors of lynching in America; a woman who cofounded the NAACP.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I was expecting something different
- By L on 02-01-21
By: Michelle Duster
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Wandering in Strange Lands
- A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times best-selling author of This Will Be My Undoing - a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with” - comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her Northern and Southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not Just Black History -- It's All Of Our History
- By Ardee on 08-22-20
By: Morgan Jerkins
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Sundown Towns
- A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
- By: James Loewen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 244
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 202
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
Sundown Towns examines thousands of all-white American towns that were - and still are, in some instances - racially exclusive by design.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Honest Reportage on American Racial's Shame
- By Anonymous User on 12-26-08
By: James Loewen
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The Address Book
- What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power
- By: Deirdre Mask
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 251
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 205
An exuberant and insightful work of popular history of how streets got their names, houses their numbers, and what it reveals about class, race, power, and identity. When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Simply OK
- By CJFLA on 07-18-20
By: Deirdre Mask
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Self Made
- Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
- By: A'Lelia Bundles
- Narrated by: A'Lelia Bundles
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Please read the book and not rely on the Netflix series
- By Sweet Pea's Mommy on 04-27-20
By: A'Lelia Bundles
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Conditional Citizens
- On Belonging in America
- By: Laila Lalami
- Narrated by: Laila Lalami
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Blew my mind!
- By Leila Jaafari on 10-20-20
By: Laila Lalami
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Black Wall Street
- The History of the Greenwood District Before the Tulsa Race Riot
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Stephen Platt
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Overall, Tulsa in 1921 was considered a modern, vibrant city. What had fueled this remarkable growth was oil, specifically the discovery of the Glenn Pool oil field in 1905. Within five years, Tulsa had grown from a rural crossroads town in the former Indian Territory into a boom town with more than 10,000 citizens, and as word spread of the fortunes that could be made in Tulsa, people of all races poured into the city.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bombs dropped on Black Wall St. wasn't mentioned.
- By Anonymous User on 05-03-21
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Appetite for America
- Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West - One Meal at a Time
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey - told in depth for the first time ever. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name. With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I loved listening to this fabulous story!
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 01-27-20
By: Stephen Fried
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The Dead Are Arising
- The Life of Malcolm X
- By: Les Payne, Tamara Payne
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 614
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 532
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Story5 out of 5 stars 529
An epic biography of Malcolm X finally emerges, drawing on hundreds of hours of the author's interviews, rewriting much of the known narrative.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Much more depth than the Haley book.
- By CapitalHeel on 11-03-20
By: Les Payne, and others
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The South Side
- A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation
- By: Natalie Y. Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
In this intelligent and highly important narrative, Chicago native Natalie Moore shines a light on contemporary segregation on the South Side of Chicago through reported essays, showing the lives of these communities through the stories of people who live in them. The South Side shows the important impact of Chicago's historic segregation and the ongoing policies that keep it that way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eyeopening!
- By Ladybug on 09-07-16
By: Natalie Y. Moore
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Disintegration
- The Splintering of Black America
- By: Eugene Robinson
- Narrated by: Alan Bomar Jones
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 101
The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a "Black America" with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book Disintegration, longtime Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson argues that, through decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Written for Popular Consumption
- By Catherine S. Read on 06-03-11
By: Eugene Robinson
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Afropean
- Notes from Black Europe
- By: Johny Pitts
- Narrated by: Johny Pitts
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story5 out of 5 stars 36
In the face of growing racial discrimination, anti-immigrant sentiment and the spectre of terrorism looming large over an economically stricken continent, Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities: too indelibly woven into Europe to identify with Africa and yet struggling with outdated ideas of what it means to be European.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Suzie M on 04-04-24
By: Johny Pitts
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This Land Is Our Land
- An Immigrant's Manifesto
- By: Suketu Mehta
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
A timely argument for why the US and the West would benefit from accepting more immigrants. Impassioned, rigorous, and richly stocked with memorable stories and characters, This Land Is Our Land is a timely and necessary intervention and a literary polemic of the highest order.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Greatly informative. wonderful narrated
- By ADEDZWA Dooyum Sartor on 06-29-19
By: Suketu Mehta
What listeners say about Driving While Black
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sam
- 10-16-24
Driving while your skin is criminal
The book gave me greater insight into why there has always been anxiety when driving, or traveling in general, outside of your neighborhood. It’s like going to the doctor for an illness, you won’t be able to resolve the problem without having understanding the reasons behind the symptoms.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Otis
- 11-22-21
Eye-opening
4.5 stars material. Great informational material. After reading this book, it brought about a great conversation with my dad. In my opinion the book really does take one on a journey. A traveler’s adventure to important historically facts on what it was like to be not looked at as equal and the challenges ones face because of others ignorance and/or stupidity. It allows one to look through the lens of someone that may not look like “you” and challenges oneself to have empathy. I recommend it.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Denver York
- 02-14-21
Needs a good editor
The premise of the book is very interesting. And it does contain some good information, but very little of it. Therefore the author repeated herself over and over and over and over and over........ The book is organized thematically but the same material, often the same phrases, are repeated in different sections which makes the book seem very chaotic. It would have been twice as good at half as long.
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1 person found this helpful