Reviews and Comments

DNF at chapter three, I love the idea, but the execution needs work. See below for full review:

I am torn on this one. It is an awkward piece to rate because it is written in the voice of a preteen, so the writing comes off as juvenile. But as it is from the PoV of a young girl, that does make sense. The downside is it makes the writing at time stilted, awkward, and an unpleasant read for adults. Which wouldn't be a downside except that adults are the target audience and, as an adult, I couldn't finish the book.

There is potential for this as a YA book for ages 10-14, which was the audience for the original Little Women as well, but the swearing and use of slurs (which were, in the author's defense, used with literary purpose) makes it currently unsuitable for that demographic. I found it an awkward but interesting read, and I am curious how accurate it is as a historical fiction piece for 1970s St. Louis.

I would love to see it rewritten, either as a YA book by removing the unsuitable-for-young-people parts, or for adults by improving on the writing. As an aside, Mom being called "Mooms" was a little awkward and I couldn't find anything online explaining that it was relevant to 1970s St. Louis. I think it might be the author's attempt at the equivalent of Little Women's "Marmee," which was relevant to the time period of the original book.

The opening chapter had me concerned that this was a Musk apologist piece, but the book turned out to be unbaised, even-handed, and explanatory. The author spent time not only with Musk, but with the people around Musk (including ex-partners - both business and romantic), his tweets (and theirs), and even delving into Musk's news interviews (“Why is Elon doing these interviews?”....“He wants to do them,” Eberhard replied, “and I don’t want to be arguing with him.”). There was insight into Musk's personal failings as well as his accomplishments, and a history behind why Musk has taken actions that, without this book's context, seem erratic.

This book is thorough up to 2023. It was not written recently enough to cover Musk's 2025 political activity, but it does indirectly answer questions on why Musk accepted the appointment from Trump, and why Trump wanted Musk. Musk has ideals and aspirations and will do anything to achieve it. Trump wants an earth-shaker who takes big risks and can create a splash. That, and Musk going down some conspiracy rabbitholes (including some of Robert F. Kennedy's), was enough for them to overlook their misgivings about each other.

The book is a pleasant read by an excellent biographer, some of my favorite passages:

Like many of Musk’s revisions, it was both correct and costly.

“I am who I am,” he said at one point, which was not actually reassuring to any of his listeners, who somehow hoped otherwise.

This did not, of course, align with his professed fealty to free speech, but Musk’s anger takes on a moral righteousness that can brush away inconsistencies.

I don't know how I feel about "Granny's" chicken and dumplings being "better than sex," but it's not positive. Using the dumplings to segue into the FMC's stagnant sex life doesn't help. The author seems to have a moment of self-awareness in asking "why am I thinking about sex at my old grandma's house?" but the awareness wasn't strong enough to remove it entirely. The next paragraph talks about her parents' death, so really just the worst placement for sex life exposition. The story gets interesting in chapter 3, only to find out a page later it's all a dream. Chapter 5 we're back to talking about having sex dreams in her childhood home, and how she's turned on despite grandma being down the hall... and that's where I noped out.

In addition to untimely thoughts of sex, our heroine "squeals," brings up her weight and diet in ways that are irrelevant to the story and mildly fatphobic, and is "not like the other girls" (quote mine, not the author's). She diets and loses weight but has curves, knows how to seduce men but would never. If you're hoping for a modern girl's girl, she's not it.

The story also contains some grammatical and punctuation errors and gratuitous swearing not relevant to plot or character presentation.