Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

59 reviews

chloethonus's review against another edition

informative sad medium-paced

1.25

Misleading title and incredibly clumsy execution. I like Gladwell typically but this book just reads as being willfully incompetent.

If the book started in the direction of "this language barrier upon the Spaniards meeting the Aztecs created a misunderstanding repeated even in common history" I could maybe understand it and would be interested in reading about miscommunications in history. But instead we get blaming people killed by the police as "not knowing how to talk to strangers", a man raping a woman as "misreading cues because he was drunk". I genuinely cannot believe any positive reviews are actually buying this pseudopsychology built on a foundation less stable than sand. Any jab at critical thinking makes these concepts of "bad things happen because we suck at social skills" deflate like a sad balloon. Cannot believe I actually wasted my time trying to search for any ounce of a good point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Violence, and Police brutality

Moderate: Racism, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Sexual harassment

annaroses's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, and Suicide attempt

pagguini123's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Police brutality, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

kdenten's review against another edition

informative reflective fast-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug use, Mental illness, Murder, and Alcohol

carolinethilde's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.0

This book made me remember that I don’t actually know anything at all. Malcolm Gladwell’s ability to dissect cultural phenomena and show us the guts is successful once again, in Talking to Strangers. 
I never realized how many small assessments we make of people we’ve only just met! Gladwell proves that humans are judgmental by nature. Most of what we assume is incorrect. He examines what went wrong in that traffic stop that was an innocent Sandra Bland’s untimely end and how it speaks to a broader social context. How do we make snap judgments about the people we’ve met and why? Are we too trusting? Too wary? Gladwell covers it all and reveals some hard truths about how we should be treating the people around us. 

Pro tip: don’t read this book in the park if you don’t want random strangers to come up to you and strike up weird conversations!! I learned that the hard way. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and Gaslighting

There is analytical discussion on attempts at suicide, racial profiling, and pedophilic behavior.

marajulia's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia

kelseyjameson's review against another edition

medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Police brutality

xxthefoolonthehillxx's review against another edition

I was looking forward to this book because I’d heard positive things about it. I got 20 minutes into the audiobook and I’m dnfing because I have no desire to hear him spew bs about how rapes are caused by a misunderstanding between strangers (as implied when he brought up Brock Turner and child sexual abusers like Nassar). In the introduction Gladwell suggests that not understanding strangers is a large contributor to rape and police officers murdering black people and I vehemently disagree and was disgusted with the implication. This book is an erasure of trauma experienced by victims of sexual abuse and racism and I have no interest in reading about that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, and Police brutality

captainwinter's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

2.5

The book made some interesting points and had some good examples, but I don’t think I learned anything new. It’s a lot of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” and Default-to Truth, and I’m not sure what I just read exactly? Also his generalisations bugged me a bit. It felt a bit ‘well, he couldn’t help raping her, he was drunk’ and ‘he was just doing what he was told, but nah, it wasn’t racism’. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Suicide

Moderate: Pedophilia

ersketas's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia and Rape