The Apple Conspiracy: How Android Became The Smartphone Of Villains

This is one of my favorite covers of the year—you better believe I judge books by their covers. On the inside it’s about Minerva Gutiérrez who has quite a few things stacked against her at the moment: she hates her job at an ice cream shop, her boss is scum, her mother is ill, she’s been kicked out of school for fighting, and she needs money. So when the shop is robbed, with her and other employees inside, she’s not going to be a hero and fight. But afterwards she learns that there is a rumor that money is hidden on the property. So naturally she teams up with her neighbor friend CeCe to find and steal the money—bonus: revenge on her boss. What could go wrong?! I’m currently reading it and absolutely love Minerva’s voice from the start and think I’m going to switch formats over to the audiobook because it’s narrated by Frankie Corzo, who narrated Mexican Gothic.

This book is a walk-in closet bursting with bananapants. It’s the kind of nonfiction that focuses on very specific things that happened decades ago but that sadly are very much being repeated now (with the all the book banning, for example). The book takes you into how the ’70s book Go Ask Alice–a published diary about a drug addicted teen–became a hit, contrary to all the massive red flags about its publication. It’s about how publishing is an honor system with no real punishment for fraud unlike other products. It’s about the history of LSD. It’s the drug panics—the fear that people were lacing drugs in things for children based on absolutely nothing— and how people didn’t want to accept the reality of increasing middle class young white male suicides so blaming it on satan worship became the go-to. You watch journalist after journalist not do their very basic job and just repeat without question the most ludicrous theories until things like the game Dungeons & Dragons were being banned because people thought it was kids worshiping satan. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so true, and happening again right now in different movements built on creating a fear (panic) without any evidence. I highly recommend the audiobook (narrated by Gabra Zackman) and getting a reading buddy or someone you can shout “YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS” at.

Now that’s my review for the book, and then I hit the author’s note at the end of the audiobook where he basically says he debated adding pages of sources and then just decided not to because the reader could just look up the stuff themselves. And exSQUEEZE me?! My dude, the book about the issues with fraud in publishing and the honor system should end with pages of sourcing. That’s how this works.

The whole story would make a great docuseries on something like HBO Max.

(TW suicide and everything related/ mentions rape cases and Manson cases/ mentions past baby death/ made up animal cruelty for satanic panic/ student abuse at school)