It is 'almost' a good book, but it is not
351877
Is this really written by Julia Quinn? It is so often just unbelievable, Julia Quinn is usually so adept at writing, that I never actually consider the 'writing', becoming engrossed in the fluid, coherent story. This story opens awkwardly,  and the heroine is ... unlikely. It goes on and on! So many details! that seem irrelevant and poorly edited.  I listened to the epilogue after just a few chapters , trying to decide if I could listen (audiobook!!:)) to all of it. It is 'almost' a good book, but it is not, unfortunately.  It needs another edit.
2261302
Although I am sympathetic to the point of view of this author,I was somewhat disappointed in the book.  While the book appears to bewell-researched, it is flawed, I believe, by a not infrequent tendancy to "shoot from the hip," as well as an occasional tendancy to be inaccurate or out of touch.  In referring to a Praxis mathematics test, for example, Gross states that students were "asked what was the probability of each of three tossed coins coming down either heads or tails.  The answer, which is known to almost all 8th graders, is 50 percent." Perhaps the answer is known to almost all 8th graders, but it is 25 percent, not 50 percent.
At another point, he actually refers to engineers as "masters of the slide rule." Where has Mr. Gross been?  No one, least of all an engineer, has used one of these things for twenty-five years.  I would, in fact, place a sizable wager on the fact that most of today's engineering students have never even seen one.
These may be trivial criticisms, that they provide a vehicle from which his critics may launch an attack.  This is a shame, because the book does a reasonably good job of analyzing the current dreadful state of American education, as well as lining up the usual suspects; i.e., whole language, teachers unions, poor preparation of teachers, and so on.  While virtually every point that Mr. Gross makes has been made elsewhere, the book provides a very useful compilation of these things.
Many of the recommendations made in the last chapter are, to say the least, unrealistic.  He suggests that we "close all undergraduate schools of education." There is not even a remote chance of this happening.  Furthermore, one can make a case for their existence, even though they are in dire need of reform.  A nearly identical argument can be made for his recommendation to "eliminate the inferior doctor of education degree." He suggests that we pay high school teachers more than elementary school teachers.  Why?  The elementary teachers are the most important part of the entire system.  If they can't get the job done, no one else will either.
Finally, even the sensible points that Mr. Gross makes, almost all of which refer to improving the quality of teachers and teaching, would have to be accomplished in the midst of a decreasing supply and increasing demand.  How can this be done?
This is, perhaps, the most important question of all.  It needs to be addressed.
2341996
This guy did some great things, to be sure, but the book isn't written well.
2938526
The title is overembellished - the book doesn't deliver .....like most books that promise a lot but don't
110652
It's not that it's a bad book, honestly.  It's ok, in fact.  Worth reading? sure I guess.  But it's got several things going against it.

First off is the title.  It's a bit misleading.  Vader is still the antagonist in the background, just like he is everywhere else, except we get to overhear his inner monologue from time to time (about every 3rd or 4th chapter).  Luceno has said in the past, however, that the book wasn't intended to be just about Vader.

The other major thing going against it is quite simple: James Luceno.

Star Wars, in whatever form it may take, is based on action movies.  Movies in which action takes place, get my drift?  Luceno's handle on any form of action is paltry at best.  every sequence in which there's a battle or saber duel or whatever are almost written like "Then they fought with lightsabers till one died."  Well, almost that bad.

The other aspect, which may just be with me, is the constant references.  Many reviewers gush about Luceno's familiarity with the canon, but as a lifelong Star Wars registered geek, his familiarity isn't very familiar.  Series of characters drop in and out of the story, with barely an adjective beyond the race they belong to.  It's as if the author just logged onto Wookieepedia and just found some random stuff he liked and threw it in.  His initial description of a bland Zabrak Jedi is almost taken word for word from the wookieepedia entry on the race.  Rather than feel like a part of the story, this just feels...tacked on.  At very few points do you feel any empathy for these characters, in fact for most of the book I felt myself thinking "just kill him/her off already, because I just don't care"

The story is summed up already here, but it's not a bad story, it's just not much of one.  This book feels more like a movie tie-in rather than an expanded universe novel, and while I may not be a huge Zahn fan, Luceno cannot hold a candle.
2972675
A good book, almost a great  book, on the seamy, slimy side of AAU basketball where talented young players, some as young as sixth graders, are lured away from  parents and neighborhood schools with false promises of  fame and riches  that usually never come true.  These kids, following their dream,  are used, taken advantage of, then discarded like a piece of clutter or unwanted junk when they can no longer serve the greed  and ambition of the AAU coach.

It is bad, really bad, disgustingly bad, and this book doe a good job, even a great job, exposing this most  unseemly and seedy side of AAU basketball.'s "amateur" athletics.

But the book is a bit too long, a 464 page book that should be about 350 pages.  It goes on and on, far too long and includes too much  superfulous  detail and feels like  a book that will never end.

It tells a good story, sad and angering though it is, and is a book that every sports fan, especially fans of basketball, should read.

And, sadly, though not covered in this book, youth baseball seems to be headed in the same direction.  And that's not good!!

It never is when an adult's greed and avarice  corrupt the hopes and dreams of young people...

And these guys prey on those hopes and dreams.

Read the book and learn...but hold your nose.  The details it describes and reveal reek.
99717
This could be a good book. It's an interesting idea. The problem is it seems the author didn't put much effort into the story. It could easily be another 100 pages or more. It needs more detail, description and character development. It's a good outline of a story but not a good book.
4824655
The "title" of this book claims that it is "beautifully illustrated" - it's not.  And I don't mean that in the sense that art is personal taste and maybe I just don't like it.  Nope, with a couple of exceptions, it's simply not very well-drawn.  The title also says it's "funny" but unless the author means that in the sense of being highly strange, then nope to that as well.

Starting with a good, basic story concept, this "book" has clearly not been edited at all.  It's full of typos that actually DO make the book a bit funny - like when the brother thinks of his sister as a "sacredly cat" (should be scaredy cat?).  At one point, we learn that she's "not a coward ad Ted thought" and "Amy's shoulder's shaking" ("oh he had to comfort her he thought") is par for the course in a book where punctuation is sprinkled around like pepper, perhaps in the hope that it will land in the right places (for the most part, it hasn't).

The cover of the book - really just a picture to which the author has crudely added the name of the book - implies that the children will be outdoors with all sorts of scary critters.  In reality, they never leave the house and the scariest thing that happens (spoiler alert!) is that they bump into their own family dog.

So if you're looking for that sort of book (which my kids love!) look elsewhere - just one more example of what this book is NOT.

I wish the writer had put more time and attention into this book, which might have succeeded if she had.  But I suspect that the entire purpose of this "book" is to direct readers to the author's so-called "personal blog," which seems to be a dummy site designed to collect email addresses to receive Kindle freebie spam.  Clever marketing tactic?  Maybe... just don't call it a children's book.
871377
Most reviewers seem to like this book, but I would rate this an ok book.
527621
A few good points, but the fact that a book is written from this perspective is almost more interesting than the book itself. Please see my more detailed review here: [...]
2790704
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise is promising and the issues with the book have little to do with the author. Rather, the story itself is the issue. The story just is not that worthy of a chase or manhunt narrative. Most of this is because very little is known about the actual events. So, instead of focusing on a riveting tell, the author is forced to describe tedious events such as personality clashes between law enforcement. Furthermore, the author cannot use a linear timeline because there just isn't a linear timeline. Supposition and guess work inundates the work.
The book does become more interesting when the author finally describes his own theory. Unfortunately, the author's own guess leave a bit too desired.
Overall, the subject is interesting. But, the broken narrative or lack of narrative strains the readers patience.
1608999
For all the hype it has received, I found this to be a somewhat disappointing book.  The dual topics of two 19th socio-political movements - abolition of slavery and the beginning of the struggle for women's rights - are two of the most important subjects of American history.  Their emerging intersection in the first part of the 19th century is one of great tales of our nation's social development.  They always deserve great respect and depth of exploration.  So it's easy to see why Kidd chose her subject(s) and tried to tell a tale that needs to be told.  Unfortunately I don't think this book really adds much to our understanding of either movement.

There are at least 4 major flaws with the book: (1) the plot is too often predictable, (2) the characters tend toward one-dimensional cutouts, and (3) the story lines are too romanticized. But perhaps the fourth and worst offense is that, in taking the form of a historical novel, the book focuses on two characters, one of whom left a thin history which had to be filled in substantially by the author, and the other of whom is almost entirely fictional except for her name and one scene early in the book.

I don't doubt that the author wanted to write a serious novel about the early years of American movements to emancipate women and slaves.  But the two main characters she chose to tell the story left Kidd without enough real history to carry the story.  As a result she not only had to almost entirely invent one of them, but to give the story sufficient life she had to romanticize events in their lives.  Moreover, other characters who play key roles in the book and who carry the names of real persons also left too little real history behind them, so they emerge in the book as simply one-dimensional people who were all good, or all bad, or all one thing or another, so as to serve as tools who move the story along.  And where simple narrative fails, Kidd relies on a style that comes close to sensationalizing people, events, or larger socio-political environments.

In short, I found this to be a very unsatisfying book.  Some of the narrative in the middle had meat on it, but both the beginning and ending sections were wholly unsatisfying.  A third of the way through the book I found that I was asking myself why I was reading it.  Then, after a stronger middle section that left me hopeful, I read through to the end and I asked myself why I had read it.

For the reader with a strong interest in the issues Kidd addresses, I'd suggest passing on this book and instead to seek out other, deeper histories or historical novels with a stronger foundation of reality.
1304856
This is an OK, maybe a decent, book.  If you are a Motley Crew fan or are shopping for a Motley Crew fan, buy this book.  If you are just looking for a rock star book for yourself or as a gift, this wouldn't be my number one book.&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Dancing-with-Myself/dp/145162851X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Dancing with Myself</a>&nbsp;is a LOT better, for instance.

I realize that everyone's taste is slightly different, but here's how I evaluated this book--by asking the question of does it succeed at what it set out to achieve?

First, its allegedly an autobiography culled from diaries.  Whether that premise is actually true or not shouldn't really impact your opinion of the book, but if every so often you stop yourself while reading and say, "There is no way this is a journal entry...its too contrived" then that means the premise isn't done perfectly.  And that happens often enough to bring my rating of the book's execution of its premise down to three stars.  There are a lot of contrived entries as well as inside jokes or references which make you realize this isn't really exclusively journal entries.  Most of it probably is, but the parts which aren't stick out.

Second, its meant to convey Nikki Sixx's experiences in Motley Crew during a certain time period.  At that, it succeeds with four or five stars.  I do appreciate the sidebars with comments from people in the diary entries--and I would actually read (if she would write it) Evangelist Denise Mathews story as well.  I guess those sidebars make me say that part of the book is closer to five stars than four--because I came away wanting to learn more about those other people in the book--he was able to make some other people into very interesting characters, which is a hard thing to do sometimes when writing about oneself.

I understand this is an music autobiography written for Motley Crue fans.  I get that you probably wouldn't read a science fiction book if you weren't a fan of science fiction, but you can still recognize a "good" science fiction book from a "bad" one if forced to read them.  This is a decent rock star autobiographical book.  I guess when I combine the 3 star achievement of the premise with the 5 star delivery of the message, its a four star book.
90957
It is a good book ,but it is not worth pay too much for it.
3901935
This book has some serious potential to be great. I picked it up from the local library, after read the first page I was interested. So here I am now after reading through it, thinking "Why did I waste my time?" I'll admit it was a good book on some levels, however, in my opinion, part of being a good author means that they are one who uses different words to explain the same thing throughout the book, instead of repeating things. Mrs. Feehan lacks that. There are so many different possibilities to describe things, but she keeps everything so limited. She uses the same words right after the other to describe something and it gets annoying.

And the worst part of the book, which I'd expected to be the best, was the love scenes. Yes Scenes. Plural. I expected one. One really well written love scene. But what did I get instead? One in almost every chapter. Every time you think something great's going to happen, Raven and Mikhail start it all over again. Every time they argue about something, they just end up making love all over again, wasting pages in the book. There's nothing wrong with a good love scene, but she just put in too many. We GET that they love eachother. We GET that they're horny. After awhile, I started skipping the love scene paragraphs because they're all the same. The only difference is where it happens, although it's usually just on any random floor.

Also, where's the plot? I got the whole part about the dying Carpathian race thing, but... the main premice seems to be more focused on sex than on anything else. If you're going to write a sex scene, make it good; don't bother throwing in 30 crappy ones thinking they'll be the equivalent to one great scene. I would have enjoyed the book much more had there been less meaningless, repetative sex and more of a conflict. The speaking lines are pretty corny too: "Touch me everywhere. I want you deep inside me."

The female character, Raven, trys to resist Mikhail's charms throughout the book, but she gives in for sex, then goes back to resisting. I mean, what's the point?

These two characters are the only two you get to know. The others are there, and they're very important, but the way this book is written they just pale in comparisson. I would also have liked to see more of the other Carpathians, but I guess we can't have everything.

Something I find very sad is that I've read stories by people who aren't as educated as I assume Feehan is, and I'd have to say 75% of the stories make hers look even worse. I actually have read a story very similar to this, and it was far better. People who write just for fun and post their works on the internet can write better than she can, at least in my opinion. And I have to say, that's really sad.

I gave the book 3 stars because it wasn't terrible if you ignore the never-ending sexcapades, lack of creative descriptions, and poor character developments and relationships.

I hope this review helps people. I don't want to flame Feehan, but just like any other author, she's not perfect.
2468429
The first half of the book is worth the book's very reasonable price, hands-down. It explains through historical examples how to properly view obstacles (i.e., as opportunities) and use them to triumph over life in general, and achieve your goals in particular.

After the first half of the book, however, the author seems to devolve from it's main premise of embracing obstacles and turning them into triumph and happiness, to one of dealing with failure.  I found this odd, because failure pretty much assumes you didn't apply the strategies for embracing and overcoming obstacles in the first place.

"Failure" and "obstacles" are not the same thing.  Failure is an end result of not dealing properly with obstacles.  So I was surprised the author didn't use the second half of the book to give example after example (even if they were hypothetical) of taking an obstacle, looking at it correctly, and using it to further one's goals.  He instead chose to discuss dealing with failure, once again using examples from history, but this time, examples that I've read a hundred times in countless other "self-help" books.

For me, that's the book's only failing.  Once the author laid the groundwork for the idea of embracing obstacles and using them to triumph over the vagaries of life and to achieve one's goals as well, he should have given lots of specific "how to" examples.  The historical examples of people embracing the obstacles in front of them and triumphing over them were simply not enough, because there was not enough "how to" detail in them.  It's one thing to instruct people to do something (i.e., "Go tackle that obstacle."), or to tell them other people have done the same thing (i.e., tackled seemingly insurmountable obstacles and turned them into success).  But it's quite another thing altogether to help readers understand the "how to" (both mindset, and physical steps) behind successfully tackling obstacles and even using them to change the course of your life.

The end of the book discusses Stoicism and the Stoic writers and philosophers, which was extremely interesting to me, particularly in relation to the subject of the book.  And to the author's credit, he provides a multitude of resources for those who want to look further into the ideas behind Stoicism, i.e., basically accepting the cards you're dealt and practicing virtues that allow you to triumph in spite of (and indeed, BECAUSE of) the obstacles in your path.

Overall, it's one of the better Kindle "self help" books I've read.  I only wish the author would have eliminated the section on dealing with failure (already the subject of countless other books) and instead used that same space to better demonstrate the "how to" behind using the obstacles that confront you in life as keys to achieving success and even happiness.  Would I recommend the book to others?  Absolutely.  Does it have a few shortcomings?  Yes.  And I'd hope the author will come out with a follow-up book to correct that slight deficiency.
963048
This is a fairly well-written book.

Given the premise, it could gave been a really outstanding piece of literature.  Unfortunately, it falls short of its potential.

It takes a lot of courage to write good porn.  I'm told that the ratio of bottoms to tops is at least 20 to 1, and perhaps 100 to 1.  When a friend, years ago, demanded that I try to be her dom, she sadly reported that I had failed.  She even gave me points for being inventive, but I just couldn't pull off the act, I could not be cruel to her.  o had all the words right, and all the moves, but there was no song in my heart. I was a plodding poseur, instead of an artiste with  a  song in my heart.

And despite this being a fairly good book, it is no "Story of O" not even a "Sleeping Beauty" trilogy.  And if you think about it, Anne Rice ran out of steam, and the second and third books on the Beauty series were joyless.  And those two examples were obviously written by bottoms, not by tops.  There just ain't many who have the courage and strength needed to be a good slave-owner.

And I include myself.  I've tried, and my friend was right.  There is no joy is my dance, either.

So realizing that we're talking about an impossible vision, where does this book stand?  Well, pretty good.  I'd give it an 84, Mr Clark, it's got a good beat to it.

And I don't remember anyone ever telling Dick Clark that they gave a dong a 100, not even anything in the 90s,  Eighty-four was a pretty good score.

And given the amount of just plain tiresome porn out there, and the amount that  should embarrass a 4th grader, being so unreadable, this boom is worth the price.

;