bare bone honestly if naively written
343106
Jackson is very willing to reveal himself, but exhibits a level of simplicity in his writing that is far from his natural
ability and practiced intervention with both people and cats. He is no writer, but what comes across vividly is
The level of suffering he has been holding for much of his life. Wonder if his Hungarian parents came here after or
before WWII . Much would be explained if he were the son of survivors or refugees who suffered untold loses. The
children of that generation are born into and cary their parents' suffering, as well as their unaccomplished dreams
and ambitions for life. He has certainly turned his own suffering, whatever it's source may be, in the direction of a
significant left brain seated talent, the ability to intuit above chance the meaning that lies behind both human and
Feline reactions to the their respective  places in space in time. While enormously different, they are both products
Of evolution, and have had to adapt to living with each other in close proximity. They communicate differently, but
Affect each other more than not. Hopefully Jackson will continue his important work on behalf of all the animals
Under our guardianship whom we treat no worse than we often treat other humans, but whom we have willfully
rendered defenseless while promising to protect them. We humans rarely keep promises.
4297885
The writing's all right, for the first hundred pages or so, but the content was unrelentingly dismal so I left off.  I don't really need to be shown in vivid detail what Russian bigots did to some poor Jewish girl, what a skull fracture looks & smells like, or what heartbroken women do to themselves with razors, or children, desperate to be liked, with whatever they can find.  After a while I told myself, "If this character does X, I'm putting the book down," X being an obvious and ill-chosen action; he did, and I did.
291996
Nothing I could say about this book would be as compelling as reading an excerpt from it. Any excerpt. The writing lumbers with precisely that kind of late adolescent turgidity and overweaning insistence that makes reading undergraduate papers so unbearable; the argument is nothing more than a series of unsupported and simple-minded generalities; the depth of scholarship reaches about as far as the water in a children's wading pool. The only thing this forgettable little book establishes is that Cornel West knows as little about pragmatism as he does about effective writing. But as I said, don't take my word for it.  Read the excerpt and see for yourself.
4513219
The book was written in fairly basic style .It was lacking in any real character depth of either the author or his bride to be. It seemed to whizz through the dating, marriage and divorce stages in a chaotic and fleeting manner. I feel the most interesting part of the book were the hints of the darker side of Borderline Michell...it seemed clear to me that their rapid marriage and inevitable divorce was to a large part due to the bpd problems circling arounds boredom and infidelity. This focuses on the main problem with the book...the author had censored it, in deference to his ex wife..this can be the only explanation. If one reads the latter half with a sense of impending or happening infedility the story makes a lot more sense. Sadly this aspect of the bpd personality is paramount in most bpd relationships,particularly one like this that was conceived in an ignorance as to past history of either party,more so michelle,over a very short period of time.
There is a book  to be written on this whole subject. I fear the pain it can cause in a real life situation inevitably results in a sanitised version that gives exactly that impression.
2688785
This book was a disappointment not only in its poor writing style, but all in the fact that it does not break any new ground.  It is little more than a string of regurgitated self-loathing diatribes written to target an already pre-defined and well-established group of readers who scoop books up like this so that they can cite secondary sources to justify their world view.  Rather than taking a balanced approach with each of the topics they addressed, these authors rush to a conclusion unsubstantiated either in fact or analysis and little true "discovery" is ever made.

I have much more respect for authors who seek to do some spade work in uncovering a new point of view, balanced and justified with deductive reasoning,  not recitations of pre-packaged pabulum already in circulation in dog eared white papers written by disenfranchised college professors.

Fortunately, I bought this book used and my personal loss, other than the time I spent reading it, was minimized.

Bytes
2476462
Sorry, I would like to write something more positive, but I can't. This book is naive in what it will accept as evidence. And that's a critical flaw in a book whose primary goal is to weigh the evidence! If you don't believe me, just turn straight to the section on Electronic Voice Phenomena. Accepting clear nonsense like that calls into question every other bit of proof cited in the book.
2447498
I was enjoying the first quarter of the book; the author's simple message was delivered: to love yourself.  It seemed simple yet strong.  I was hyped and hoping for more as I read on...  My suspicion grew, and there was nothing more.
Besides the simple message in the beginning of the book, it has no substance.
His execution is poor, as it contains basic grammatical errors.  Its amateurish.
The anecdotes are at times choppy and mystifying, lacking in both contents and contexts.
To me this book is nothing more than a college essay  a rough draft at that.  Its as if it was written by somebody who had an epiphany while sleeping, got up and scribbled down his thoughts.
Its not worth paying for it.
2681392
This book is an easy read because the 250 pages are primarily dialogue. It is the story of a teenage student who has the moral standards of a street hooker. During the school days she smokes, guzzles beer, fights and performs erotic activities on her boyfriend. She has no true friends, does not get along with her mother and interacts with others conversationally at the second grade level. She was sexually abused by her step father many times which she apparently enjoyed. She is ready to submit even now with very little encouragement.

Her goal is to seduce one of her teachers who was separated from his wife due to his infidelity. She went to his house to accomplish this feat and spent the night tightly cuddled in his arms. The author would have you believe that this fairly young heterosexual male, identified as a cheating husband, spent the entire night making no moves but merely slept the entire time. This is a girl of acknowledged beauty with an eye catching rack and a magnificient posterior pressed tightly against this unfaithful rover and all he did was sleep? Gimme a break.

Anyway, for nearly the entire book there is nothing but sin, unhappiness and mayhem. Then in the last few pages a miracle occurs and everyone becomes a law abiding, friendly and worthwhile member of society. Yeah Right. This is not a good book but it is not terrible either. It is not aimed at a mature audience.
4885229
If you want a story told without fancy flourishes, without words used for nothing more than a pretence of erudition, then here you go.
It's basic. I liked it.
2381351
If you're already a Christian, and enjoy seeing people who aren't Christians being satirized and made into amoral, ridiculous idiots, you will enjoy this book.

However if you are like me, and were hoping for something to challenge your thinking about atheism and faith, save your money. This book will only insult you and offer you nothing new to reflect on. Make no mistake: the "loser" in the title is only superficially referencing god. By the time you close the back cover, you understand that the "loser" can only be A.F. Christian, the execrable character whose letters these are purported to be.

Mary Eberstadt's self-styled atheist is a caricature, a parody of a person who capitalizes the second person pronouns of the exalted atheist minds she reveres, as though she believes them to be deities worthy of that kind of respect. Further, she seems deeply (and strangely) literate on Christian thinking and literature, because she seems to spend the entire book warning said deities that they must not reference so-and-so, because his logic is ironclad! And stay away from mentioning such-and-thus, because we atheists are wrong on that. And if we are to succeed in our mission to destroy the culture--because after all, that's what all atheists want, isn't it--we must not refer to these particular statistics ... and so on. As a final insult, she details the circumstances by which the ersatz protagonist cast off her belief in god because it was somehow inconsistent with her decision to abort her child, in other words, because it was easier to be an atheist than to accept the existence of the Christian god and be saddled with the requisite responsibility and guilt, as if they necessarily go hand in hand at all. (One is not required to believe in any god to believe that abortion is wrong; these two beliefs have virtually nothing to do with each other.) The book's title is plainly intended to reference the writer of the letters rather than the "loser" she refers to in them. She is entirely shallow, stupid, hiding behind a veneer of cutesy, overenthusiastic Gen-Y language and gimmicky puns, like some kind of brainwashed college-age liberal activist, instead of giving an authentic, sincere counterpoint to modern Christianity for the purpose of respectful, rational deconstruction. Her author is either incapable of conceiving of such a thing (the reasonable atheist searching for truth), or just too lazy to imbue her character with any redeemable faculties of reason.

C.S. Lewis claimed he did not enjoy writing The Screwtape Letters, because (one presumes) it was difficult for him to think like a minion of the devil, to see the world through evil eyes. Eberstadt does not even attempt to see the world through the eyes of one whose faith is broken. She instead makes a contemptuous clown of her character. There is nothing in her writing to offer any understanding of the real challenges facing people who struggle to comprehend the difficulties of faith, Christian culture, its bewildering dogma and its inconsistent values & practices. Writing as someone who wanted this book to give me new insights and ideas to consider, I instead got a Juvenalian hit piece aimed not at respecting my confusion, or trying to engage it and help me through it, but satirizing it and making sure I knew that some Christians really don't care whether I believe or not, they just think I'm an idiot ... a loser.

Mary Eberstadt, if your goal was to entertain Christians, preaching to the choir so to speak, your book is a success. But if you wanted to reach people whose faith is uncertain and try to invite them to Christianity ... you're not helping, you're giving them the middle finger.
1230663
shallow, too simplistic, easy to second-guess what's going to happen
2228299
The voice seems authentic, and that's about the only interesting aspect of the book.  His life in the limelight was brief indeed; so brief, that aside from some childhood details, the brothers' short stint as London club/gang lords in the 60's,and of course, his version of the murders and trial (with ample whinging about how all the other bottom-feeding book- writing co-criminals got the details wrong) he has to add gobs of filler.  His "story" is padded out with an entire chapter of his wife Kate's story (a chatty, self-serving "bio", written in the first person, by the woman herself), chapters about life inside and finally a long, dull chapter about the history of Broadmoor!  To get a perspective, figure it out like this:  the man was born in 1933, convicted and imprisoned in 1968.  This bio was published in 1993 (Ron Kray died 2 years later) so, aside from a few reminiscences from the glory days,  what is there really to write about?  A dull life in prison, brightened up by visits from a bubbly young wife and a little light research into the history of the institution that is his home.  You might as well feel sorry for the bloke; his "legend" is a sad and hollow one.
1106867
This novel is the defintion of "pulp fiction." The prose is simple-minded at best, with the same stock, one-dimensional characters found in every quasi-adventure novel. The hero is a paragon of masculine virtue, the villians are evil incarnate, the female characters are either conniving sluts or angelic virgins. There is nothing new or believable here. What's more, the historical detail can only be described as cartoonish, leading me to ask whether or not the author conducted any research at all, beyond watching old black-and-white Musketeer movies.
If you like your fiction "ultra-light;" if you know nothing about history and don't care to, or if you are a fan of John Jakes novels, than this book is for you. Otherwise skip it.
3113490
The point of writing a book starring orcs is to show that, from their point of view (alien though it be from that of humans), they're not the evil ones, and gain the reader's sympathy for those creatures that orcs are. The point is not to redefine them as overly sensitive environmentalists with a rich culture and bursting hearts, and show them sharing feelings over cups of chamomile tea.

Ignoring this missed promise, obvious plot holes, and the flattish characters, the major problem is the apologetic prose. The word "luckily" appears every page or two. Luck, luckily, just barely, saves the day again!

On the plus side, the pacing is good. I felt like reading a dumb fantasy book, and that's what I got. So I finished it! I admit I started scanning past the tensionless battle scenes though.
720587
I'm not looking for a fiction fast-paced novel with accounting textbooks. But, I've read enough of them to realize when one is written better than another. This doesn't make the cut. All the critical information is in there, it's all factually consistent and written technically well. But it's a pedantic read. There's very little natural language used and there's no effort to relate to the reader for an easier comprehension experience.
4363931
I read this book on vacation, and so my brain was as relaxed as possible and as willing to be understanding. However, for the sake of full disclosure (and, hopefully, credibility), I am a graduate student in Medieval Studies, and I happen to have been taking a couse in the Medieval Book this semester, so that was my background while I was reading Codex.

I don't really need to repeat the comments of most of the people here -- that the plot is thin, the characters shallow, and that at best, the novel keeps you reading until the final, disappointing conclusion. I will say though that for the know-it-all tone that Grossman adopts, and considering that he brings in a medievalist graduate student to be even more erudite,  his mistakes are glaring. (Some of these are factual mistakes that anyone with an acquaintance with the subject would spot, and some are logical mistakes that absolutely anyone would notice.)

I only remember one of them off the top of my head, and I can't check for more because I left the book in disgust at the hostel where I was staying. However, it's a notable example of the ignorance involved. Someone suggests burning the manuscript, and the main character says something like, "It's vellum, not paper. It doesn't burn."

EXCUSE ME? Someone should have told that to all the vellum manuscripts that have been destroyed in fires over the ages... then they would have known that animal skin doesn't burn.

Look buddy, if your main character was an English major at Yale, even as an undergrad he would know that vellum burns, because they all know that the Beinecke is full of rare manuscripts and books, and they like to tell you repeatedly (though incorrectly) how the air will be sucked out of the entire stacks in the case of fire. Also, he would know just a little more about books in general, ya know?

Sigh.
3803232
I am deeply disappointed. This book just states the obvious . 1+1=2. I give it 2 start only because of the effort that author made actually sitting and writing this and spending his time on this.