Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As someone wanting to design and build an Earthship-inspired home out of natural building materials, I was thrilled to find this book on Earthship concepts and how to make them better (with a perfect 5-star rating at the time). When it arrived I couldn't wait - I ripped the box open and began reading! Without exaggeration ... this is the Absolute Worst Book I've Ever (tried to) Read. This book disappoints on so many different levels including the title, organization, content, credibility and value ($). "Hacking the Earthship" is a completely misleading title! "Trash-talking about Earthships" best describes the first 3 chapters, as the author(s) try to describe how virtually everything Mike Reynolds has said or done with Earthships is wrong in some way with weak or unsupported information. Chapters 4-11 ramble almost incoherently about (I'm paraphrasing) embodied energy of materials, finding your Zen, cursory descriptions of natural building materials, laundry lists of how to think about designing a home, Dan Jones' epic garden, etc, etc, etc. The author's conclusion was most befitting... "Overwhelmed? Need help?" ...consider hiring an architect." I think "Rants (about Earthships) & Rambles by RPP et al" would be the most accurate title. I have no doubt some of the concerns about Earthship issues may be credible and need to be addressed--that's why I bought this book! But the author is so careless with her wording, logic and data sources to support the claims, there's really no way to discern which passages are valid (fact) and which ones were just pulled out of the air (author's opinion or 1-time occurrence). The author makes no valid attempt to solve the issues they raise, short of ... don't build an Earthship, don't build off-grid, don't build in-ground home, etc How could such a poorly written piece of work get past an editor? Page 10 reveals the first 2 editors of the book "couldn't finish the book" (quit?), and no credit was given to an editor, so it appears the author may have self-edited (or the editor didn't want their name associated with the book), and the book was published by the author's company. Shouldn't someone with "16 years of architectural experience" and a Texas A&M Masters Degree in Architecture be an experienced credible source for a book on Natural Building? You can read her bios on her web site (with creative self-anointed job titles), watch her videos on YouTube, but, from what I could see she never became a licensed architect, rather worked for architectural firms designing wheel chair ramps and other support roles. I couldn't find evidence the author has ever designed and built anything (other than a wheel chair ramp), let alone a home, and especially not a home made of natural materials. Nor could I find evidence she's done empirical research on any of the topics in this book. Disclaimer: This review is not personal, I have no ties to the author, nor the Earthship designer, Mike Reynolds. I almost never write reviews. My purpose for writing this review is that I felt I wasted $40 on this book because the Amazon reviews for this book were grossly inflated and an honest review was necessary (and trying to make sense of the book was frustrating and painful).