4 stars
I will start this review by clarifying that this is a book of speeches. This is not a book that Thunberg sat down and wrote out and organized. It is compilation of her speeches and posts in chronological order. I’ve seen a few reviews saying it is boring, repetitive, and not well-written. I think the main reason it may come off this way is because of this format. It’s pretty common to repeat the same basic information throughout speeches, especially data and statistics. So yes, the book gets a bit repetitive, but each speech is unique despite having the same message. I still enjoyed reading each of them.
Also, if you don’t believe or care about climate change, I don’t think this book alone will change that. If you’re looking for writings to recommend to such people, I would suggest “Wherever I Go I Seem to Be Surrounded by Fairy Tales” and “We Are the Change and Change Is Coming” because I think those two synchronize most of the information presented in the book.
As someone who cares about the environment and is worried about reckless human impact, I thought these speeches were well-written and really got to the issue. You can see how Thunberg has developed over her year of speeches and I thought she very maturely handled criticism about her age or how she should be in school. She also writes well about how her Asperger’s diagnosis influences the way she sees the issue. A remarkable book of speeches written by a remarkable young woman.
The subject matter is hard to deal with but Thunberg has done an excellent job tackling the issue.