mediocre, author has awful personality
938663
Rather typical "what I did on the PCT" hike, interspersed with examples of the author's rude behavior and high-horse opinions.  It's replaceable by any other PCT hiking book.  Weak on gear information.  Not really a good resource.  No real "story" either.
516249
I really hated this book.  I wondered if the super smart sociopath with a redeeming motivation was the author's alter ego.  And ego seems to be the operative word.  So much of the book seemed to be his bragging on how much he knew about virtually everything.  All those incoherent descriptions took up half the book before it got so gory that I had a new level of hating the book and wondering if the "Wunderkind" author was a sociopath with a 180 IQ.  I ended up not liking him much either.
3166497
My enjoyment of a book requires a flow and "truthiness" of the human interactions to help the dramatic, ridiculous parts go down smoothly.
This book does not have it. The protagonist, "Lord" Hawke, is at turns ridiculously emotional and impulsive, and/or impeccably composed and cultured. Often this will occur in the same paragraph, with sudden rages and deep hates expressed frequently enough to become as laughable as the smooth interaction with royalty and elite soldiery becomes. All this from a thirty-something blueblood hardcase with sixty years of experience and self assurance.

I plowed (ploughed?) through this anglophile excrescence in grim determination to get some value from my purchase. In vain. Meh.
1955405
"Equality (Two Democracies: Revolution Book 3)," authored by Mr. Alasdair Shaw, has an interesting storyline, that has some merit, some points of interest, draws a reader in. Unfortunately, the author fails repeatedly to execute. Instead, he preens, condescends, and is apparently more concerned with showing how smart, how clever he is, rather than delivering a worthwhile product.

The pomposity and pretentious nature of the writing, ruins what otherwise would have been an above average, solid book. The MC, "Johnson," commander, "Legate" of the free forces, is turned into manic depressive, who is barely capable of coming out of her cabin. The "genius" tech giant, "Harry," is a low testosterone, emotionally stunted, insecure, self obsessed, nervous Nellie. Perhaps the most engaging character throughout the series, the sentient AI "Indie," is drawn by the author, as a foppish reject from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Mr. Shaw, in order to show how much he knows, has dipped not only into Latin to name different ranks, but has added Homeric Greek, and even some Scandinavian mythology terms. Whole sections of the narrative are spent on the training range, going through simulations by characters. This is apparently a "default setting," for the author, due to his personal history on training ranges, as evidenced by his own "bio." Another parallel plot line appears awkwardly, forcibly interjected into the story narrative, crudely stapled to the main story, in order to rudely create a conclusion to the book.

This reviewer enjoyed the preceding books of the series and looked forward to the story's continuation. "Equality," proved to be a bitter disappointment, difficult to read fully, and does not bode well for any future follow-on.

"Equality (Two Democracies: Revolution Book 3)," is not recommended (prior books in the series are with caveats). The book was fully read via Kindle Unlimited.
4019836
I bought the Audible version of Killing Monica because I wanted a fun, well-paced story about fabulous characters that you root for. This book was none of those things.

The principal characters were wholly unlikable. Pandy was an immature idiot. Sondrabeth was a manipulative narcissist, the male characters were all one-dimensionally awful. I hated the whole lot of them! And I couldn't figure out why they liked each other.

The plot was outrageous and at the same time very predictable. A lot of the middle was a plodding, painful account of the deterioration of Pandy's marriage. It was pointless because we all knew where it was headed and the tiresome recount of it only made me impatient and irritable. There was not much humanity in the telling of it-- Pandy was an idiot and her husband was textbook villain.

SPOILER AHEAD:
Oh, I figured out the GRAND FINALE ZINGER halfway through the book. And let's just talk about that plot twist. Really? Are we really trying to keep up with the Kardashians with this? Frankly, I find this book to be rather insulting to the transgender community-- to just kind of piggyback on its recent media exposure without lending any true insights to the experience-- uggh.

What was most disappointing of all is that the premise of the book is a really interesting one, given who the author is. If she had taken the time to write compelling characters and finessing the plot so that it progressed believably in an unbelievably fabulous world, she could have written a fantastic book.

This book was so bad, it makes me wonder if Bushnell wrote it just to piss off her editors. Is Candy (rhymes with Pandy) trying to move away from this book to write more serious literature? Either way, this book left me non--plussed.

PS, can't figure out if the reader made the book MORE irritating.
324435
This book is terrible.  The author's writing style is mediocre at best and some of her advice is absolutely absurd.  It was an absolute waste of my time.  Deep down, we all know how we learn, it's instinctive.  This book will just give you fancy names for your style of learning.  The "advice" the author gives out is vapid and uneducated.  My favorite was that I should take acting classes and stop being antisocial so that I could fit into social norms.  The author is clearly an extrovert who is perpetuating the idea that there is something wrong with introverts and that introverts need to be fixed.
1486761
Author is pompous and overall comes off as a mean person. Wasn't helpful to me. It probably isn't helpful to many people.
3692980
One of my psychology lecturers recommended this book, so I started to read with high expectations. Unfortunately Mr Bering writes in a verbose, self-indulgent style which is neither charming nor convincing. He quotes poets, novelists and naturalists that support his beliefs, but seems either to exclude or be unaware of others he may have a contrary opinion. I found his potted history of psychological experiments unconvincing, as he seems either blissfully unaware of the replication crisis of psychology or wishes to keep the reader in the dark. He critiques religious belief, but seems to promote a naive perspective of evolutionary theory - presenting it as another Just So story. It is not a charming book as he relies heavily on an American centric view, which is unlikely to be convincing to other 95% of the worlds cultures. He also comes across as unpleasant boy ( a liar who still ridicules the people he deceived)  and an ambitious adult whose self-interest stymies his moral qualms about experimenting on great apes.
The topic of this book is fascinating, but unfortunately this book fails to be a convincing critique. I hope that in the future a book is written which takes a more multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural perspective, and is written by a more charming author.
4945902
Well-typed fluff stuffed with facile bromides and super-cliched, stock characters. The good people are so Good they seem like Disney characters and the bad guy (Amberton, the closeted movie star--there's an easy target) is such a corrupt narcissist he's basically a robot. I think the factual entries about Los Angeles that the author intersperses throughout the book are supposed to be BOLD and COOL but to me they read like Wikipedia entries. I live in Los Angeles and learned nothing new about my city. No, I'm serious: not a single thing.

Never read his other two books but I'd heard this guy was a great writer(notwithstanding his memoir/novel controversy). Never written one of these reviews before, THAT'S how much I disliked Bright Shiny Morning. Sorry.
189676
Mediocre - the first part of the book is the writer slapping himself on the back and is written to his own self praise.
433668
I simply can't believe the ratings on this book.  It was mediocre at best.  The issue was not the author's writing skill per se; but the main character was simply dreadful.  She was a parody of any rational woman.  Made to look clumsy and inept but not in a playful way.  Her decisions were inane.  She simply could not be less attractive as a person.  Why would you purposely make a character like this simply act stupid? And how could you expect us to believe that the male lead would find her interesting? I really wanted to like it but what was supposed to be "humorous" was simply slap stick; the main character was unappealing; and the storyline was truly not believable.  I believe this author has the ability to write an interesting book - but this was not it.
2070458
Bleh, where do I start here. I was intrigued by the title, but this thing is awful. I found one funny line in the first few pages and after that, I was just slogging through hoping for humor I never found. Give me Miss Manners anytime! She's hilarious. This is dreck.

This author has a twittery way of writing that is very annoying. It's kind of like this: "I only eat Cinnabon once a month! okay, twice. Not really. Well, maybe 3 times a week. Just kidding!" Stop already! She has no idea of how to tell a joke - less is more, lady.

She's also mean spirited in a very non-funny way. There's a lot of cursing and putting people down - I guess she thinks that's funny? She makes repeated jokes about Republicans that reveal her close-mindedness, shallowness, and stupidity. Example: She liked one mommy a lot, but the mommy had the nerve to say Rush Limbaugh had some good ideas. That was it for the author! She packed up her bags and left! As a libertarian, this is a hot button for me, the taking of sides that says "I am right and the other side is wrong." That kind of thinking is exactly why this country is so divided; it's the outlook of people who are small minded, very ignorant, and incapable of working as a team. People of all political persuasions have good ideas, even if you don't agree with all of them. Guess what lady, Rush Limbaugh is a million times funnier than you, at the very least. It always astonishes me when authors are willing to lose half their possible sales by attacking half the country.

She includes CHILDREN in her attacks. Example: She's complaining about bragging moms, and she says "your kid is about as interesting as mildew! move on!" (nearly every answer contains something like "move on! give up! stop it!" she's very bossy and b**chy). I don't like bragging parents either, but I ascribe that to the *parents,* not to the kid. Is it fair to put the kid down because the parents as boors?

But I guess I should have known that a writer who's actually watching Honey Boo Boo would have a very low IQ. I'm not bothering to finish this unfunny mess.
4417692
What an appalling opinion of women this author has. Each female character in this novel is portrayed as an unhinged individual to some degree. Each  inhabits some area of the twilight zone or la-la land. The author's use of the most obscure words imaginable is I suppose his attempt to disguise the thinness of the plot. The hero is the least likeable of the bunch, the morally bankrupt professor who blithely crosses the line and has an affair with a female student and when he has to dump her upon the return of his wife and young daughter, the result is a tragedy for all except for him though on the surface there are consequences for him, he emerges the least damaged. I have no idea why anyone would describe this author as a the greatest living writer-talk about hubris! I do not recommend!
3310503
After reading the mediocre reviews from this author, I will not purchase anything this author vomits from her fitly mouth. Scum.
872440
I really wanted to like this book.i didn't. I really wished I could feel something for the people Martin studied and wrote about. I didn't. Worst of all I hoped I'd find the authors character likeable. I didn't.

The book is a series of anecdotes justifying the quest for  overpriced material status symbols.
Sadly the author falls prey for thiis quest and proves to be as superficial as the subjects she is studying. She justifies hers & others deplorable behavior with anthropological notations.

Don't waste your time reading Primates. Your energy is better spent going to the zoo. At least animals are sincere. You'll find nothing authentic about this book.
2770417
I'm a huge Gears of War fan on the xbox, so when i saw this at the bookstore, i figured why not.  Overall, it is not a bad book, but it offers nothing new to the storyline.  My biggest pet peeve with this book is the author.  It is obvious the woman is British, and it pissed me off she constantly uses British slang as one of the character's dialogue.  They are on a different planet, I seriously doubt they have an England there too.  Not to mention the fact that the person who always uses this slang is suppose to be modeled after a Samoan, not a Brit.  The worst thing about this book is the way the author basically puts herself into the novel.  Yah, thats right, there is an old-middle aged woman gear.  And the way she writes the character, it is so obvious it is suppose to be her, and all girl power and that nonsense.  Now I'm not gender biased at all, but the way she wrote the character was very very poor and distracted from the other main characters, the ones we want to read about, not some made up character based upon herself.
3967616
I really have no idea how this author got published. 2 stars for an interesting concept, but the writing is abysmal and the characters are mopey, childish cardboard cutouts.