Mr. Book just finished The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I decided to read this book after listening to the big praise that Lawrence O’Donnell gave it on his show. Unfortunately, the book did not live up to hype.

The book got off to a very good start when the author was talking about his first experience reading Sports Illustrated and its coverage of Daryl Stingley’s terrible injury. But, then the book wasn’t that interesting until the final chapter on the Israel-Palestian conflict. That was definitely the highlight of the book, but even then it wasn’t as good as I was expecting and it could only raise the grade up to a B.

Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B equates to 3 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.

Mr. Book finished reading this on November 5, 2024.