It was cool to read such a brazenly leftist book, though it did kind of read as “this is what leftism is” at times which was just not what I wanted. I can understand its value though. The prose also was not my favorite, though it wasn’t bad. 

Also, this is a very small portion of the book, but I kind of didn’t appreciate how Christianity was portrayed, like I believe we can understand and condemn all of the terror that has been inflicted using Christianity as a front and all the oppression still perpetrated by Christian leaders and organizations, while also recognizing that they do not define the religion as a whole. The book basically calls Christianity inherently evil, using European Christian conquests and white Christian nationalism as reasoning, which I just think is belittling to progressive and non-European Christians. (Christianity literally started in Palestine.) Also not all preachers are rich? Like? Most aren’t?

Anyway, I appreciated a lot of what this book had to say. I loved the concept and I think it did an excellent job showing how democrats won’t save us. I also appreciated seeing different opinions within leftism. And neopronoun rep! I loved its portrayal of white guilt and how, while it’s well meaning, it frequently ends up hurting people of color. Liberal white guilt runs deep and I’m still in the process of unlearning it. It’s admittedly only recently that I learned about the harm it can cause.

This book wasn’t perfect, and honestly I think part of my feelings are just it not really being my style, but I still am glad I read it and I would like to read more from Sim Kern.