Review by Jasmine M Wardiya -- The Banned Book about Love
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Jasmine M Wardiya
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Review by Jasmine M Wardiya -- The Banned Book about Love
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Banned Book about Love" by Scott Hughes.]
2 out of 4 stars
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The Banned Book About Love by Scott Hughes takes the case of Brock Turner, arrested and convicted in 2015 on multiple counts of sexual assault while under the influence of alcohol, and uses it as a springboard to explore love, hate and the human perchance for violence. Containing fourteen pages and six “chapters”, The Banned Book About Love is a short but evocative piece that demands the reader reads each thought and thinks about every question posed. Originally titled: “I Love Brock Turner”, the book was available for free download from Amazon upon publication before it was banned days later, and is now exclusively available at OnlineBookClub.
This is not a tale of romance, though the title may suggest so at first glance. This is not a work of fiction, as the case of Brock Turner testifies. It is also not a piece of work that accounts The People vs. Brock Turner case or reports on the outraged heads that turned because of it. It is not a piece forgive, absolve or excuse. It is a personal essay: an opinion piece that explores indiscriminate love and discriminate hate.
On the first page is the question: “Do you have Brock Turner?” I confess that, before reading this book for the first time, I’d never heard of him before. Still, I recognised the situation well enough. I’m a university student as well. Just last Monday there was a protest against sexual assaults on campus and the case of Brock Turner is the very sort of assault protested against. But this book addresses that as well: the protesters that cry out for punishment, for blood. One hates and screams, but what is hate? What is love? The love in this book is the sort of unconditional love for humans, for humanity, that the author aptly summarises under “empathy”.
Empathy is love and understanding, but it is also distance. Empathy does not have to mean acceptance, nor sympathy, nor forgiveness, and this is at the root of every one of those six parts and fourteen pages. Empathy does not mean condoning violence, condoning rape, condoning losing one’s senses. It simply means recognising that the perpetrator is a human as well, and so are we.
The Banned Book About Love returns to love and hate, using the case of Brock Turner, a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. the argument of religion, and evocative statements to hammer this point home. As an opinion piece, it makes for an interesting read. However, opinions are sparks that can catch fire, and there are many flammable sparks.
One is my initial misconception about the title. The world of today is, on the whole, more open to relationships once considered taboo, but there are still a fair few people against them. The “banned” part of the title made me think about those taboo relationships: homosexuality in countries where same-sex marriages are still not legal, and incest. This thought turned out to be entirely irrelevant once I read the summary, but when the title is the first thing one sees, alternate ways it can be taken need to be considered. The Banned Book About Love is an interesting title, but it’s not all-encompassing, nor do I think it strongly reflects the content of this book. Love is a word used frequently in the book but it’s also constantly defined and that should be enough to say it’s expected to be read differently without that context. And this sort of love isn’t banned; it is just self-condemned, and this book explores that. The title is good, but it’s not glove-fitting for this piece.
Next, the opening. As someone initially unfamiliar with the case, I appreciate the summarising spiel. However, I see this book (as a whole) as a piece about love, empathy and hate that uses the case as a springboard, even if the case does bookmark the piece, and, by opening with a specific case that’s still sparking fires and turning heads, it’s set up for hound dogs to take figurative bites out and that was precisely what happened. Part of it may have been the original title, but Amazon also displays sample pages and the first few pages are strong in love and weak in empathy. They’re misleading in what the overall message is and where it lies. But even if Amazon did not preview the first few pages, readers tend to. Here’s a strong beginning: too strong so that it’s misleading. “Give me a few paragraphs to illustrate” is how the first chapter ends. Those who consider the opening as an attack against demands of justice and revenge may very well not give those few paragraphs. I did because of the doctor’s code, because a doctor had to do their best to help every patient of theirs survive and not suffer, regardless of whether they’re innocent or guilty of a crime the likes would see them executed outside the hospital’s doors. And also because I’m not as good a human as the code declares quite yet, but I was curious.
The arguments that follow are public and personal, political and religious: picking different scenarios and touching different people, or even different aspects of a single person but is, on the whole, no way all-encompassing. All of them implore us to change our thinking and that’s gutsy, and it becomes less provocative as well particularly once empathy is stamped, but it’s the first chapter that sets the tone, sets the scene, and it’s a far too provocative and inflaming start. This book should be read to the end to grasp it, but I highly doubt every reader is going to make it past the second page. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. I did. It was gusty, as I said earlier, and thought provoking. It’s the sort of thinking that’s forgotten in hatred, in blame. The sort of thing that’s trampled in protests and courts and when there’s a victim in front us bleeding blood and tears. But it doesn’t cater to the flames it can create; rather it feeds them and that can be an interesting site for an outsider but leave a good solid conclusion go unread. The third chapter is far too late to say this book is not a defense for Brock Turner. And the statement: “I love Brock Turner” is repeated far more often, and love as a concept is an overwhelming presence. Yes, love is the point of this book. That does not mean that, two paragraphs later, I’ve forgotten the author loves everyone. And another example: “That would be beside my point; that would be irrelevant to what I mean.” To me, that second phrase adds nothing but extra words.
I give The Banned Book About Love 2 out of 4 stars, for while it was thought provoking, passionate and an interesting argument against demanding crimes be paid for by blood, it is written and presented in a way that makes it more inciting than it needs to be, and it meanders a little in places as well (though still, fourteen pages is not particularly long). If you want your definition on love challenge, I suggest you read this book. If, on the other hand, you're sensitive about crime and especially sexual assault, I suggest you avoid reading.
******
The Banned Book about Love
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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2 out of 4 stars
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The Banned Book About Love by Scott Hughes takes the case of Brock Turner, arrested and convicted in 2015 on multiple counts of sexual assault while under the influence of alcohol, and uses it as a springboard to explore love, hate and the human perchance for violence. Containing fourteen pages and six “chapters”, The Banned Book About Love is a short but evocative piece that demands the reader reads each thought and thinks about every question posed. Originally titled: “I Love Brock Turner”, the book was available for free download from Amazon upon publication before it was banned days later, and is now exclusively available at OnlineBookClub.
This is not a tale of romance, though the title may suggest so at first glance. This is not a work of fiction, as the case of Brock Turner testifies. It is also not a piece of work that accounts The People vs. Brock Turner case or reports on the outraged heads that turned because of it. It is not a piece forgive, absolve or excuse. It is a personal essay: an opinion piece that explores indiscriminate love and discriminate hate.
On the first page is the question: “Do you have Brock Turner?” I confess that, before reading this book for the first time, I’d never heard of him before. Still, I recognised the situation well enough. I’m a university student as well. Just last Monday there was a protest against sexual assaults on campus and the case of Brock Turner is the very sort of assault protested against. But this book addresses that as well: the protesters that cry out for punishment, for blood. One hates and screams, but what is hate? What is love? The love in this book is the sort of unconditional love for humans, for humanity, that the author aptly summarises under “empathy”.
Empathy is love and understanding, but it is also distance. Empathy does not have to mean acceptance, nor sympathy, nor forgiveness, and this is at the root of every one of those six parts and fourteen pages. Empathy does not mean condoning violence, condoning rape, condoning losing one’s senses. It simply means recognising that the perpetrator is a human as well, and so are we.
The Banned Book About Love returns to love and hate, using the case of Brock Turner, a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. the argument of religion, and evocative statements to hammer this point home. As an opinion piece, it makes for an interesting read. However, opinions are sparks that can catch fire, and there are many flammable sparks.
One is my initial misconception about the title. The world of today is, on the whole, more open to relationships once considered taboo, but there are still a fair few people against them. The “banned” part of the title made me think about those taboo relationships: homosexuality in countries where same-sex marriages are still not legal, and incest. This thought turned out to be entirely irrelevant once I read the summary, but when the title is the first thing one sees, alternate ways it can be taken need to be considered. The Banned Book About Love is an interesting title, but it’s not all-encompassing, nor do I think it strongly reflects the content of this book. Love is a word used frequently in the book but it’s also constantly defined and that should be enough to say it’s expected to be read differently without that context. And this sort of love isn’t banned; it is just self-condemned, and this book explores that. The title is good, but it’s not glove-fitting for this piece.
Next, the opening. As someone initially unfamiliar with the case, I appreciate the summarising spiel. However, I see this book (as a whole) as a piece about love, empathy and hate that uses the case as a springboard, even if the case does bookmark the piece, and, by opening with a specific case that’s still sparking fires and turning heads, it’s set up for hound dogs to take figurative bites out and that was precisely what happened. Part of it may have been the original title, but Amazon also displays sample pages and the first few pages are strong in love and weak in empathy. They’re misleading in what the overall message is and where it lies. But even if Amazon did not preview the first few pages, readers tend to. Here’s a strong beginning: too strong so that it’s misleading. “Give me a few paragraphs to illustrate” is how the first chapter ends. Those who consider the opening as an attack against demands of justice and revenge may very well not give those few paragraphs. I did because of the doctor’s code, because a doctor had to do their best to help every patient of theirs survive and not suffer, regardless of whether they’re innocent or guilty of a crime the likes would see them executed outside the hospital’s doors. And also because I’m not as good a human as the code declares quite yet, but I was curious.
The arguments that follow are public and personal, political and religious: picking different scenarios and touching different people, or even different aspects of a single person but is, on the whole, no way all-encompassing. All of them implore us to change our thinking and that’s gutsy, and it becomes less provocative as well particularly once empathy is stamped, but it’s the first chapter that sets the tone, sets the scene, and it’s a far too provocative and inflaming start. This book should be read to the end to grasp it, but I highly doubt every reader is going to make it past the second page. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. I did. It was gusty, as I said earlier, and thought provoking. It’s the sort of thinking that’s forgotten in hatred, in blame. The sort of thing that’s trampled in protests and courts and when there’s a victim in front us bleeding blood and tears. But it doesn’t cater to the flames it can create; rather it feeds them and that can be an interesting site for an outsider but leave a good solid conclusion go unread. The third chapter is far too late to say this book is not a defense for Brock Turner. And the statement: “I love Brock Turner” is repeated far more often, and love as a concept is an overwhelming presence. Yes, love is the point of this book. That does not mean that, two paragraphs later, I’ve forgotten the author loves everyone. And another example: “That would be beside my point; that would be irrelevant to what I mean.” To me, that second phrase adds nothing but extra words.
I give The Banned Book About Love 2 out of 4 stars, for while it was thought provoking, passionate and an interesting argument against demanding crimes be paid for by blood, it is written and presented in a way that makes it more inciting than it needs to be, and it meanders a little in places as well (though still, fourteen pages is not particularly long). If you want your definition on love challenge, I suggest you read this book. If, on the other hand, you're sensitive about crime and especially sexual assault, I suggest you avoid reading.
******
The Banned Book about Love
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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Latest Review: "A Kingdom Forgotten" by Charles W. McDonald Jr.
