Cover Image: The Spirit Gene

The Spirit Gene

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Member Reviews

The subject of this book is very interesting, the science part appealed to me as a scientist. It is not hard to follow the science though. Furthermore, "The Spirit Gene" is highly original. The drawback to me was the story pace and some parts of the narrative that drags on details, such as the view when a character is running, which for some readers could be magical, but to me was just slowing down and making it into a slow read.

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I'm interested in DMT research and experiences so I chose this book. The “God” Gene meets the “Spirit” Molecule? A detailed account of a scientist's journey into psychedelics.. The author goes into great detail about everything from experiences with various hallucinogenics to genetic engineering. Clearly a lot of research went into this book. Very interesting reading, but long and hard to follow at times. I did learned a lot about psychedelic plants.

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I really wanted to like this one, but it failed to keep me interested...
The description and book cover drew me into wanting to read The Spirit Gene by Mark Reynolds, unfortunately the execution failed to keep me engaged.
The Good:
~ idea
~ you’ll learn something about DMT if you are not familiar with it
~ able to commingle science and religion while being fair to both
The Bad:
~ execution of the story
~ lots of repeating throughout the book
~ slow going
~ too much detail in some parts (it kept going and going and going...making me lose interest)
~ switching between first and last name of the main character within a page, or sentence (please pick one or the other)
~ you do not need to explain someone answered in English and then continue with their statement in English through the book (once is enough if you need to do it, or go ahead and use another language, either way is OK)
~ conversations were either awkward, short, or contained unnecessary extra dialogue
~ emotions do not fit or make sense
All of these thing made it difficult to connect to characters. I tried over many days, but the connection never happened. This book was not for me, but maybe someone else will enjoy it. Overall, in it’s current form, I cannot recommend the book.
Parental advisory/trigger warnings: drug use (DMT and ketamine) and alcohol use, drugging a woman for genetic reasons (read the book, I won’t give spoilers on it, but it is against her will), killing. I do not recall swearing in this book.
Thank you for allowing me to read and review the book.

#TheSpiritGene #NetGalley #Spirituality #Religion #TimeTravel #DMT

*Please note: I dislike giving bad reviews as books are subjective, but am honest in my reviews.

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