Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsDefinitely Need a Background in the Field to Understand
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 12, 2020
While this book seems to be targeted to those who do not know much about astronomy, cosmology, and astrophysics, for you to actually enjoy the contents of the book, you need to have at least a small background in the field. I don't mean you need to have a PhD, but maybe an intro level college course or something similar as Tyson goes through many topics related to astrophysics in such a manner that will lead you to read a paragraph multiple times to ensure that you understand what it is he is talking about. It's not that his writing style is bad per se, it's just that the nature of these topics is that they are so abstract and require you to be able to possibly ask questions to ensure that you understand them. If you're the type that enjoys googling different things while reading, then this might be something you want to pick up.
The book is fairly short - only about 200 pages in a fairly small format with a good print size. If you tried, you could probably finish it in a day. I almost did but I got tired of not understanding some things he explained and had to put the book down.
I did not have to push or force myself to read it. In fact, I found myself gravitating towards the book if I had nothing better to do in my day. But I would then have to put it down once I got lost in another tough to follow concept.
When Tyson says "in a Hurry", he is not kidding. He goes through topics that have decades of research behind them and explains them in one page. There may be some topics that you understand, but probably a few that you won't. Some of the fault lies with his writing style as it kind of seems all over the place. I got lost in several topics due to the way he explains some things where it seems that he will talk about X but then start talking about Y, Z, A, B, C, before bringing it back to X. This may be due to my lack of knowledge in the field where I fail to see how these things tie together but I forsee that being an issue for those in the same position as me.
It's disappointing as I thoroughly enjoy his explanations of various topics on YouTube and was expecting his book to be similar. You can tell he really enjoys what he does. The book can be enjoyable even if there are parts you don't understand but keep in mind that there probably will be parts that you don't understand and that might frustrate you.
