Reviews for Noni; Nature's Amazing Healer

The average rating for Noni; Nature's Amazing Healer based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-10-11 00:00:00 Michael McKelvey There are two types of nonfiction: 'Look at all the cool stuff there is.' and 'Look at all the cool stuff I know.' Sims falls clearly into the latter pile, smug and condescending. He brings up the beliefs and traditions of ancient and foreign cultures solely for the purpose of deriding them, but the perspectives of Western secular humanism go unquestioned because of course we've arrived at pure knowledge. Disjointed, aimless, and peppered with inept analogies, it's okay in snippets, but intolerable for sustained reading.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-28 00:00:00 Michael Hall I struggled to get through this -- it gets three stars for fitfully engaging passages and plenty of trivia. The book reads like a 300-page New Yorker article, and coming from me, that is not a compliment. The author injects far too many opinionated asides as well, which are extremely distracting. He references classic literature and mythology extensively, disdaining more modern references and popular culture, which adds to the condescending tone of the book. Space constraints prevent the discussion of several areas of the body (knees! teeth! armpits!), according to the introduction, contributing to a somewhat cursory tone as well. There is trivia aplenty here though - who knew that the platypus has 8 hours of REM sleep, more than many 'higher' mammals? I also found it curious that the author has no problem listing and discussing numerous slang terms for male and female genitalia, but is much more restrained when writing about the navel, for example. Maybe it's just me...but I was expecting more. Disappointing. Read Diane Ackerman or Desmond Morris for better coverage of similar themes.