BR Fridays: "Sex on the Moon"

I have tried and failed to finish reading "Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History." The writing is okay. The newsstory had the potential to be interesting.

But....

I worked as a tour guide at Johnson Space Center and could not get past the author's seeming ignorance of the campus, the space program, or lack of research. He admits that he spoke with the man who perpetrated the heist and that the majority of his source material comes from him. That is more than apparent. The main reason I could not finish the book had to do with the fact that Thad Roberts is portrayed as a victim of society, his environment, his upbringing, his lack of a free-ride education, etc. I have a hard time with that cop-out attitude of "well, if I had been treated better than I would have made better choices," "I just wanted to fit in with the crowd."

I say BS. I still think this is an intriguing story and were it written from the perspective that the facts are these I would have finished the book. There was too much in the first 1/3 of the book that had to do with the criminal's reasoning behind why he felt pressured to do it: a girl he liked who wasn't his wife needed to be impressed so that she would like him back.

It felt like I was being forced as the reader to empathize and feel sympathy for someone who had a history of breaking the rules, taking things that didn't belong to him, and then blaming others for his actions. I couldn't finish the book. Maybe someone else could and will give it a better review, but I just can't. I enjoy true crime non-fiction books but this one felt like the author tried too hard to present a story rather than the facts. It was too subjective and I didn't enjoy it.