Review of The Real Shawshank
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[i][Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Real Shawshank" by William "Bill" Hoffman, M.Ed..][/i] [rwc=id467309-125]2 out of 4 stars.[/rwc]I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I’ve been searching for good biographies lately. I want to read about interesting people doing interesting things. I want to learn about lives that have a different perspective to my own. It’s something I really should do more of, to be honest with you.
In theory, William “Bill” Hoffman, M.Ed., has something of that with The Real Shawshank. Narrating his life from his childhood and teenage years in Atlantic City to, mostly, his trial in Lexington, Kentucky, and imprisonment in Allenwood F.C.I., the book covers Hoffman’s life and times. It goes over both his work as a C.P.A. (Certified Public Accountant) and a teacher, not just his time as an inmate, building a case for his innocence.
The thing is, I think this book, for as interesting as it could be, is only worth 2 out of 4 stars. It doesn’t draw me in like other memoirs, and it has a list of issues that need addressing. Moreover, it just doesn’t do anything to stand out from other memoirs that are more gripping.
For one, the book is riddled with errors. Every sentence is either grammatically incorrect or missing a few words. I’m inclined to pass this off as a feature of the author’s speech, but from the court transcripts he provides, it’s clear that this is not how he speaks regularly. Rather, it’s a sign of sloppy work and even sloppier editing that I just can’t get past despite my best attempts.
There’s also the matter of Hoffman repeating himself constantly. He’ll introduce an idea or a character, only to repeat himself every few paragraphs with slightly different phrasing. It was annoying and made the book dull to read at the best of times. In fact, I couldn’t get past the frequency of such repetition as it actually affected the organization of the book. While it was mostly in chronological order, the repetition meant that there was a constant back and forth that held the potential for confusing a reader.
This is also a huge problem because of the introduction. In addition to being extremely lengthy, it lacks a coherent structure and spoiled the rest of the book for me. After reading it, I felt like I had gotten the gist of the book, the rest of it just extraneous details and conspiracy theories. This made it extremely hard to read and often, I found my attention wandering away from the page. I really didn’t like that as it made it harder to read the book than it was to do anything else at all. It was also just unnecessary to have an introduction that accounted for nearly a fifth of the book.
All of these things combined to make the book a slog to read. I don’t know what happened between conception and writing, but it’s clear that Hoffman needs to revise this completely in order to make it readable. In its current condition, it’s nowhere close to that.
However, not everything was bad. There were moments where I was nearly interested in what was happening, mostly with the prison chapters. While the stories there were mostly cut off to focus on the author himself, I thought the cast of characters he introduced was quite the ragtag bunch that I’d enjoy reading about more.
I don’t know what else there is to say about this book. For the most part, I didn’t like it. Between the errors, the long introduction, and the repetition, I found it to be difficult to read and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. If I’m being honest, I think the author really needs to take a long look at it and decide if this is the book he wants to put out or if he’ll revise it, but that’s just me. Hopefully, he’ll do the latter.
Until next time, my friends. Happy reading! ****** [i]The Real Shawshank [/i] View: [url=http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=467309]on Bookshelves[/url]
In theory, William “Bill” Hoffman, M.Ed., has something of that with The Real Shawshank. Narrating his life from his childhood and teenage years in Atlantic City to, mostly, his trial in Lexington, Kentucky, and imprisonment in Allenwood F.C.I., the book covers Hoffman’s life and times. It goes over both his work as a C.P.A. (Certified Public Accountant) and a teacher, not just his time as an inmate, building a case for his innocence.
The thing is, I think this book, for as interesting as it could be, is only worth 2 out of 4 stars. It doesn’t draw me in like other memoirs, and it has a list of issues that need addressing. Moreover, it just doesn’t do anything to stand out from other memoirs that are more gripping.
For one, the book is riddled with errors. Every sentence is either grammatically incorrect or missing a few words. I’m inclined to pass this off as a feature of the author’s speech, but from the court transcripts he provides, it’s clear that this is not how he speaks regularly. Rather, it’s a sign of sloppy work and even sloppier editing that I just can’t get past despite my best attempts.
There’s also the matter of Hoffman repeating himself constantly. He’ll introduce an idea or a character, only to repeat himself every few paragraphs with slightly different phrasing. It was annoying and made the book dull to read at the best of times. In fact, I couldn’t get past the frequency of such repetition as it actually affected the organization of the book. While it was mostly in chronological order, the repetition meant that there was a constant back and forth that held the potential for confusing a reader.
This is also a huge problem because of the introduction. In addition to being extremely lengthy, it lacks a coherent structure and spoiled the rest of the book for me. After reading it, I felt like I had gotten the gist of the book, the rest of it just extraneous details and conspiracy theories. This made it extremely hard to read and often, I found my attention wandering away from the page. I really didn’t like that as it made it harder to read the book than it was to do anything else at all. It was also just unnecessary to have an introduction that accounted for nearly a fifth of the book.
All of these things combined to make the book a slog to read. I don’t know what happened between conception and writing, but it’s clear that Hoffman needs to revise this completely in order to make it readable. In its current condition, it’s nowhere close to that.
However, not everything was bad. There were moments where I was nearly interested in what was happening, mostly with the prison chapters. While the stories there were mostly cut off to focus on the author himself, I thought the cast of characters he introduced was quite the ragtag bunch that I’d enjoy reading about more.
I don’t know what else there is to say about this book. For the most part, I didn’t like it. Between the errors, the long introduction, and the repetition, I found it to be difficult to read and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. If I’m being honest, I think the author really needs to take a long look at it and decide if this is the book he wants to put out or if he’ll revise it, but that’s just me. Hopefully, he’ll do the latter.
Until next time, my friends. Happy reading! ****** [i]The Real Shawshank [/i] View: [url=http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=467309]on Bookshelves[/url]
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