The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats is possibly Jon Ronson’s weakest book, but still amazing. It is the only book in which he initially tried to be the omnipotent narrator who knows what someone is thinking & his organization format was confusing. He usually writes the book by describing in chronological order how he researched it and interviewed people, but he jumps around a bit and tries to do mini-cliffhangers throughout the book that only served to confuse me as he introduced a character, interrupted with cliff hanger then introduced another character and returned to first. Wait, who, what, where. It is too bad that it unfolds poorly because it is a shocking expose that apparently US has joined the ranks of using really weird, almost occult [insert Godwin law moment] techniques. He effectively has a meta critique about how journalists fail to really stare at the difficult story and spin it instead of tackling it so kudos for his efforts to look at it unflinchingly instead of humorously.