Shawn has been incessantly writing his whole life. While he is a prolific writer, he is not necessarily a good writer in the sense of a Bronte sister or a Hermann Hesse. He was a horrible student and has never taken the time to learn to truly entertain through written words or to even punctuate well. His aim in writing has always been to inform his reader and so reading him can be a daunting experience for people hoping to escape reality. He has a tendency to over-explain things, to sound pretty didactic and to present information he feels is necessary to learning even if it fails to hold a reader’s attention. His punctuation can be horrible, and his run-on sentences can bog a reader down in a choke-hold. The basis of this are his punk roots which contribute greatly to his personal need to avoid selling or packaging his ideas in romantic language and so he creates “hear me” content which for some can be seen as self-indulgent.
This said, if someone reads to learn, to consider new views and/or information never before considered some of Shawn’s books may meet their desires head on. In the end, it might be said that his books are not hard reads but they can be hard to read. Shawn became interested in writing after seventeen years of reading some of the greatest books ever written.