Two star review, originally posted here on December 21, 2020 during a mass-review of pandemic audiobooks.
[DISCLAIMER: I’m catching up on months worth of Audiobook reviews, so writing this quickly.]
I dunno. Maybe I’m just getting burned out on audiobooks and have lost all attention span or something. I really wanted to love this. Should have been hella interesting. Book’s supposed to be amazing. But I found myself just grumpy and wanting it to be over already. First of all, I don’t think this narrator did a good job. Everything was stated in this weird dramatic tone, regardless of what we were talking about. It just didn’t seem to gel, and it grated one me.
I also had a hard time following. Stuff just didn’t seem to make sense. Like, Hubbard is kinda a spiraling loser, and then all of a sudden he’s a crazy rich successful cult leader. What happened? Did I miss a whole chapter? I feel like the part where we actually explain what Scientology is was missing. The part where we explain how Scientology grew is missing. The actual structure of Scientology is missing. This book was so crazy long, and yet I left with no real deeper understanding about Scientology. Stuff seemed to meander and jump, drag and skip, just… what was happening? As per usual, some of this confusion may have been based on the fact that this may have not been the best selection for an audiobook. But… glancing at other reviews with similar comments, I don’t think the format was the main issue here.
Helga without the H 