Shutterbabe

Is a 0.5-star rating available?

I hated this book. I took as much as I could handle, then I had my wife summarize the details I missed. Despite a distillation of Kogan's laborious prose, even my wife's more patient (and more empathetic) retelling simply reinforced my opinion.

Kogan was a rape victim, a feminist and a floozie with an almost deliberate naivete and a Leica camera. After placing each item in her pack, she, courageously, ventured into the dog-eat-dog world of photojournalism. Her journeys were dangerous and defining. Her efforts were both noble and relatable.

The book is themed as a chronicling of love. This point is made, re-stated, reinforced, beaten with a stick, skewered and plated with garnish... ad-nauseam; much like this sentence.

Did I mention it's poorly written? Does she know more than one sentence are allowed in a paragraph. That one does not need to use cumbersome grammar to cram everything into a one-sentence paragraph. It's true... you can do that.

In the end she found love. She realized feminism was not her desired answer to love or life as she matured in both respects. I know many people have found, and will certainly continue finding, value in this memoir. For me, don't just skip it, read a thesaurus instead... which Kogan must surely have done, based on the incredibly forced vocabulary throughout.