Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsSome good, some bad
Reviewed in Canada on October 18, 2018
There are some very interesting concepts in here and I enjoyed part of it. The glowing cover reviews are possibly true, although I have concerns about them as I sure can't verify them. And at this point I'm unsure if I'll try to read the book again.
I found that some parts that involved math were maddeningly frustrating, with the author glossing over statistic calculations with summaries that made little sense. I felt like shouting "show your work" a number of times. And yes, I'm aware that some of it was pretty basic, but if you aren't versed in stats there is a good chance that, like me, the numbers will not make sense. And that means that the points that the numbers were supposed to illustrate do not land well.
There are brief illustrative statements at the end of each chapter that are intended to be everyday instances of concepts, but in a number of cases I ended up not that clear about them, and after a while, you just skim over them because they aren't always strong illustrations of what was just discussed.
A few times the author introduces a concept, names it, then changes the name or...geeze I dunno, I got lost many times, and from the context I know I was supposed to be retaining something key, but the way it is written it isn't that easy. The style is by turns engaging and then dives into dense instruction. The book structure wasn't really clear, and I think it was a bit eccentric, but that could be just me not getting it. By the end I know I didn't feel that the author wrote a general audience book.
I feel that if there had been an editor involved who wasn't a phd in economics or psychology there would have been some significant improvements in readability. I give it 3/5 stars because a few of the discussions were rewarding, but some were just university level gobbledygook.
