The Men who Stare at Goats

Meh. Incoherent, rambling and without any meaningful narrative drive. The short unconnected stories in Them are at least internally logical. Ronson is always witty and his prose easy to read, but just couldn't get into this.

I may write something on this over on my medium because I find this so interesting. Perfect interplay between comedy and reality; truth being stranger than fiction. Honestly, that the US government reacted to intense demoralization from a war with similar ways in which Hitler desperately sought additional power through similar absurdities, is just so on point for the relationship institutions have when they accrue power and deal with loss of agency. Anyway, I liked this book a lot lol. If I write a piece I will link it in the review. It may be that the narration boosted this from a 3 star to 4 star book for me. Very good delivery of just wild material. Especially some quotes from people. I did not find it difficult to follow. It was chronological, though I suppose he goes out of the narration to comment on things sometimes, both for humour or needed context. It felt fairly normal to me, structure wise. It’s the rest that’s whack. People who find some of it devalued because it’s the truth from his perspective and it undermines actual truths, I suppose that’s true to some degree—but not the Point as detailed in the final chapters.

I only belive that everything written in this book is true, because it's too crazy to be a believable lie. It's really amazing what Jon Ronson discovered about the US army. It's an easy to read and funny, but also a disturbing book. I liked the "Psychopath test" a bit more than this one, but it was still fascinating!

Absolutely bizarre, funny and unbelievable. This book really interesting, It's the kind of thing that you'll want to tell everyone around you about as you're reading it.