Firstly of course it is totally fine not to like anything I write! Totally support it, and support writing about how a person didn't like it, that is incredibly legit and very useful for readers.
I don't believe in replying to any review except to correct an error of fact. So in this case, I reply only on the one point of "Elon Musk apologia".
Here is what I say about Elon Musk, in the context of my own experience of pregnancy loss:
"I wondered, like everyone, about the trajectory of the American technology billionaire and richest man on the planet Elon Musk – a king in all but name in most of the ways that count. Eventually I read a single line in a profile that mentioned in passing that his firstborn son had died from sudden infant death syndrome at ten weeks old. It happened in the same week that PayPal was sold and he made for the first time an enormous amount of money – more than $100 million. The information was just dropped into the profile lightly, a side note, as if this was just one of many interesting things that could happen to a person and not the central fact around which everything else in one’s psyche rearranges itself.
The same week. Like God smashing your face open with a gold bar.
I read elsewhere that a very high proportion of the many children Musk has had since have been sons. I felt I understood perfectly that if this is true it must have been accomplished with IVF and a fury to fill in the bottomless hole of grief for that lost boy.
I understand how a person can be left with a rage to destroy the world that has perpetrated such horror.
When I say that I am unreliable, this is the sort of thing I mean. My powers, thankfully, are limited. I do not have the ability to destroy the great institutions of a world that let these terrible things happen to me. I cannot declare war on the Pope or the USAID programme. Still, I’m aware that I’m not as sane as I once was."
I do not believe this is "apologia" and I think that there is a huge difference between trying to explain how someone ends up with a "rage to destroy the world" and apologising for it. Of course, I leave it to other readers to make their own minds up but this seemed to me quite a grave accusation so wanted to include the entire passage here.
And, again, absolutely fine not to have enjoyed the book, or anything I do or write! More power to you on that.
I don't believe in replying to any review except to correct an error of fact. So in this case, I reply only on the one point of "Elon Musk apologia".
Here is what I say about Elon Musk, in the context of my own experience of pregnancy loss:
"I wondered, like everyone, about the trajectory of the American technology billionaire and richest man on the planet Elon Musk – a king in all but name in most of the ways that count. Eventually I read a single line in a profile that mentioned in passing that his firstborn son had died from sudden infant death syndrome at ten weeks old. It happened in the same week that PayPal was sold and he made for the first time an enormous amount of money – more than $100 million. The information was just dropped into the profile lightly, a side note, as if this was just one of many interesting things that could happen to a person and not the central fact around which everything else in one’s psyche rearranges itself.
The same week. Like God smashing your face open with a gold bar.
I read elsewhere that a very high proportion of the many children Musk has had since have been sons. I felt I understood perfectly that if this is true it must have been accomplished with IVF and a fury to fill in the bottomless hole of grief for that lost boy.
I understand how a person can be left with a rage to destroy the world that has perpetrated such horror.
When I say that I am unreliable, this is the sort of thing I mean. My powers, thankfully, are limited. I do not have the ability to destroy the great institutions of a world that let these terrible things happen to me. I cannot declare war on the Pope or the USAID programme. Still, I’m aware that I’m not as sane as I once was."
I do not believe this is "apologia" and I think that there is a huge difference between trying to explain how someone ends up with a "rage to destroy the world" and apologising for it. Of course, I leave it to other readers to make their own minds up but this seemed to me quite a grave accusation so wanted to include the entire passage here.
And, again, absolutely fine not to have enjoyed the book, or anything I do or write! More power to you on that.