Review by Diving doc -- The Banned Book about Love
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Diving doc
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- Latest Review: "The Banned Book about Love" by Scott Hughes
Review by Diving doc -- The Banned Book about Love
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Banned Book about Love" by Scott Hughes.]
3 out of 4 stars
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The Banned Book About Love by Scott Hughes is a short e-book demonstrating the author's views on blind hate, mob mentality and the “love” of all people. Interestingly, the cover actually shows The Banned Book only, then the word hate drawn in a heart in the sand which is somewhat confusing. It reads like a debate speech or a blog post, with use of one highly controversial example; Brock Turner, better known to most as the Stanford rapist.
It is an organised argument, explaining what is wrong with hatred; particularly of people we do not know; based on one aspect of what they have done. He begins by describing the anger turned towards Turner, and explains why he thinks it is wrong, before going on to suggest better ways of dealing with this. The first half of the book is almost exclusively about Turner, covering options of altering sentencing policy, taking a side track into Brock's actual sentence, then whether he could technically give consent himself. The second half describes in a more general way the author's view of what he terms love of all people. It touches on the religious stance of love for all men, and explains the problems with retaliation.
The book refers to positive emotions as “love” and negative ones as “hate”. It appears this is done for effect to really push the message of treating people well. I found the repetition somewhat irritating, but understood why it was there. The “love” is a biblical “love thy fellow man” rather than an “I love my new shoes”. As someone who rarely uses the L word, I felt the positive emotions could have been better encompassed by compassion, forgiveness,empathy and acceptance, while the negative emotions cover anger, disgust, rage and spite. It brings up many areas of controversy, and would be a great as a debate starter, or for a book club discussion.
Interestingly, the book was previously published on Amazon under the title I love Brock Turner, and resulted in vitriol and spite towards the author in line with the type of mob mentality he declaims in the book. I found the irony of this amusing but a little disturbing. From some of the comments it is pretty clear they had not read the book, but based their response purely on the title. In the end this “hatred” resulted in the removal of the book from Amazon. This was a pretty sad state of affairs given it was a free e-book proclaiming forgiveness and donating money to charity for every sale from the author's own pocket.
There are very few technical errors, although on a few occasions “tl,dr” appeared, leftover from the editing process. The sentences where this appeared were clearly lacking at least one word in this place, so a little more editing is required pre-publication.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It is an interesting read, and technically well written. It it thought provoking, controversial and has the ability to create change. There are sidetracks, but I do not feel they detract from the purpose. My main issue with it is that I do not think a book is the correct format. It is essentially the author's view in an argument, and any argument deserves discussion. True, it is possible to contact the author and start that discussion (he includes contact details), but this only results in a 2 way debate, rather than an open floor. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good debate, or is interested in self improvement. Probably best avoided by those happy coasting on the surface of life
******
The Banned Book about Love
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3 out of 4 stars
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The Banned Book About Love by Scott Hughes is a short e-book demonstrating the author's views on blind hate, mob mentality and the “love” of all people. Interestingly, the cover actually shows The Banned Book only, then the word hate drawn in a heart in the sand which is somewhat confusing. It reads like a debate speech or a blog post, with use of one highly controversial example; Brock Turner, better known to most as the Stanford rapist.
It is an organised argument, explaining what is wrong with hatred; particularly of people we do not know; based on one aspect of what they have done. He begins by describing the anger turned towards Turner, and explains why he thinks it is wrong, before going on to suggest better ways of dealing with this. The first half of the book is almost exclusively about Turner, covering options of altering sentencing policy, taking a side track into Brock's actual sentence, then whether he could technically give consent himself. The second half describes in a more general way the author's view of what he terms love of all people. It touches on the religious stance of love for all men, and explains the problems with retaliation.
The book refers to positive emotions as “love” and negative ones as “hate”. It appears this is done for effect to really push the message of treating people well. I found the repetition somewhat irritating, but understood why it was there. The “love” is a biblical “love thy fellow man” rather than an “I love my new shoes”. As someone who rarely uses the L word, I felt the positive emotions could have been better encompassed by compassion, forgiveness,empathy and acceptance, while the negative emotions cover anger, disgust, rage and spite. It brings up many areas of controversy, and would be a great as a debate starter, or for a book club discussion.
Interestingly, the book was previously published on Amazon under the title I love Brock Turner, and resulted in vitriol and spite towards the author in line with the type of mob mentality he declaims in the book. I found the irony of this amusing but a little disturbing. From some of the comments it is pretty clear they had not read the book, but based their response purely on the title. In the end this “hatred” resulted in the removal of the book from Amazon. This was a pretty sad state of affairs given it was a free e-book proclaiming forgiveness and donating money to charity for every sale from the author's own pocket.
There are very few technical errors, although on a few occasions “tl,dr” appeared, leftover from the editing process. The sentences where this appeared were clearly lacking at least one word in this place, so a little more editing is required pre-publication.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It is an interesting read, and technically well written. It it thought provoking, controversial and has the ability to create change. There are sidetracks, but I do not feel they detract from the purpose. My main issue with it is that I do not think a book is the correct format. It is essentially the author's view in an argument, and any argument deserves discussion. True, it is possible to contact the author and start that discussion (he includes contact details), but this only results in a 2 way debate, rather than an open floor. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good debate, or is interested in self improvement. Probably best avoided by those happy coasting on the surface of life
******
The Banned Book about Love
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Diving doc's review? Post a comment saying so!
Latest Review: "The Banned Book about Love" by Scott Hughes
