All-in-all, a shallow, predictable treatment
586203
The ending was strangely rushed. Also, the topic could have been more deeply explored. The complex issue of being a woman aging in the youth obsessed United States (with ambitions to export that ambition to the rest of the world) was introduced, but left unexplored.
2951905
The best thing about this book is probably its title.  But the rest is a disappointment - unless you just need a source for all the latest exact figures on the topics covered here.  Hatcher treads well-worn ground with familiar statistics on the decline of marriage, the rise of divorce and out-of-wedlock births, etc., etc., and then pontificates on the underlying cause of or reason behind these social ills as if the numbers point in a straight line toward the usually ready and biology-free explanations which he provides.
Mostly these stories will be familiar in tone to those who've heard the PC/academic crowd before and a lot of the blame for what he sees as the growing divide between men and women falls on men - just as you've probably heard ad nauseum on Oprah or Dr Phil, the sitcoms, etc.  Hacker is too old-fashioned in his chivalrous attitude toward women to consider that maybe women's choices have something to do with it - i.e., that there's a dynamic going on which involves both sexes.  He seems like a typical "progressive" Neanderthal saying women can follow the Barbie Mantra ("Girls can be/do anything!") and men are just supposed to comply with all that women need of them like good little slaves.  Where's the flaw in that?
It's a pity that he didn't do some actual research on what others make of these matters because there's a fairly well developed literature out there which bears on the same statistics and reaches drastically differing conclusions and solutions.  But Hacker is oblivious.  And he doesn't seem to have talked to any real people.
For example, he fails to recognize that marriage these days confers no rights on men, only obligations.  (Some sacred institution...)  This has enormous implications which hardly anyone seems to grasp.  While Hacker cites the fact that the vast majority of divorces are initiated by women - 75% in some studies I've seen - he fails to connect this (as other studies have done) to the simple fact that family law biases the custody of kids toward the women; and while these "settlements" bind the man to his traditional role as breadwinner, it frees the woman from her traditional role vis a vis the man.  A man would have to be a fool to enter into such a "contract" (which the state will not only not enforce but will help one party break) and a woman would have to be a fool not to recognize the advantages of divorce.  When the chief purpose of marriage seems to be to supply woman with ex-husbands, it's suprising the divorce rate isn't higher than a mere 50%.  But you won't find a discussion of things like this in the book.
Sometimes Hacker goes entirely off the rails, as when he discusses inter-racial marriage (90+% of which involve a black man and a white woman) and the high proportion of black males in prison (relative to their representation in the population).  He concludes that the latter is being engineered by white males as a male-male sexual competition/jealousy sort of thing over white females.  If so, it ain't working very well!  I'd love to see what he makes of the fact that men as a whole outnumber *women* in prison by about 10 to 1...
So when the book isn't sadly predictable and blindered it's downright goofy.  I think Hacker, like all others I'm familiar with in academia who've attempted these topics, has it just about all wrong.  Too many numbers do not make for convincing cases.  1 1/2 stars.
4104349
This book took me about 90 minutes to read in total. And that's not a boast abut my speed of reading. There is some basic information to be had here, but the treatment is pretty shallow and often seems somewhat mean-spirited.

For example, in a section about education, the book states that Chinese education "stifles creative development."  Okay. But then it gratuitously  recommends that Americans "cultivate a forgiving attitude towards those [Chinese] who sometimes seem unable to deal with situations requiring creative solutions--no matter how simple the problem may seem to you." A lot of the book reads like that: slightly derisive and even condescending towards Chinese culture.
2021093
I'm probably being a bit harsh as I had high expectations, but this was very formulaic and consequently predictable movie.  I don't think there was a single surprise in the whole movie.

Worse, I can only guess at what the "horror" actually was.  People miraculously turning up in a location doesn't qualify nor does extensive corpse play.  On corpse play it is obvious that only one of the protagonists can actually do any acting and with the very fake "dummy" it was a little like the Brady Movie when the middle sister walks in with a blow up doll.

The acting was quite good and the s&eacute;ance scene was the reminiscent of the old Raimi, but even here there was nothing to add to the genre.

There are a lot of comments about the humor in the movie, but the only thing I was laughing at was how stupid I was to shell out for this movie.

In short, spend your time on watching something else... Almost anything else....
1070778
T.A. Barron writes cheezy, predictable books that have no original content, and Merlin's Dragon is no exception. All of the characters are predictable routine stereotypes for all but the most remedial of children. The story itself might as well be conjured up by a monkey.

The author himself seems self centered and pretentious, to the point that I had to do a little research on the subject. Check out his youtube videos. Many of the comments are fairly obviously written by T.A. Barron himself. I'll bet many of these verbose reviews are no different. "Pierre Dupin" wrote "Merlin's Dragon is a combination of Tolkien, Madeleine L'Engle, and T.H. White, but better". No one in their right mind would write that about T.A. Barron.

Why two stars? The book is a good length for what it is, and might be interesting for a child that hasn't read another fantasy novel. It might also give that child some perspective when they actually start reading some good fiction.

Don't cater to stereotypical nonsense written by a self-centered narcissist. J.K. Rowling (at least the first books,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Harry-Potter-and-the-Sorcerer-s-Stone/dp/B001I1PW3K/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</a>), Tolkien (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Hobbit/dp/0618260307/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Hobbit</a>), Terry Pratchett (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Color-of-Magic/dp/0061020710/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Color of Magic</a>), and Neil Gaimen (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Graveyard-Book/dp/0060530928/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Graveyard Book</a>) are all great inventive writers that deserve a read. Read them. Avoid T.A. Barron at all costs.
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.
4935008
Complexity and ambiguity are basics of the spy novel, but there is none of that here. This book is a mediocre procedural that only tangentially involves spies or espionage. Its covert activity -- an escape route -- is something "that just works" (largely) and there no fun of discovery of what it takes to run a complex operation of that type. Would that my vacation trips were so easy to arrange and ran so smoothly.

The story feels like it has been simplified -- plot and characters -- for easy conversion into a screenplay for a theatrical movie (but unlikely to be good enough for cable). Although many words are expended describing the characters, the result is only two-dimensional, uninvolving stereotypes. The story has the sort of linearity and choppy jumping from scene to scene that I associate with screen plays rather than (non-pulp) novels. The starkly condensed plot requires a level of omniscience of the part of multiple characters, in contrast to what I expect of the genre. Everything comes easy to the protagonist, similar to a Jason Bourne movie but without the "wow". Although the regional and ethnic animosities are mentioned, they are missing from the actual story. The characters have an astounding credulity, especially considering the escalating crisis, and they provide nearly immediate agreement to requests that put them at considerable danger but have minuscule reward.

Friends had suggested that I read the books in this series and unfortunately this was the first one. They (and professional reviewers) described these books as rich in sense-of-place and historical details. I found little of that here, other than a coarse timeline of how WW2 entered the Balkans. Plus, the author lost lots of credibility with me with his yammering about the Walther PPK pistol: He repeatedly highlighted it, but got much wrong. (The PPK is what James Bond famously carried in the movies)
DETAILS: He has the protagonist ask for "the detective version" of the PPK, which is redundant: PP = PolizeiPistole and the "K" indicates the detective variant. The PPK excelled at concealability, but many concessions/tradeoffs were made to achieve that. It lacked stopping power (.32 cal, short barrel), tended to jam and was effective only at short ranges. This was acceptable when the pistol was expected to be primarily used as a threat or intimidation, particularly against the unarmed. For example, making an arrest. It could also be a deterrent, keeping an opposing gunman far enough away for long enough. However, when the protagonist is called up by the army, he makes the inconceivable, and very deliberate, choice to take a PPK. And when the protagonist uses his PPK on a covert mission, it does not "bite" his hand, as the PPK was won't to do -- the handle design doesn't provide protection of the hand from the slide as it returns from ejecting the shell and pinches/cuts the skin between the thumb and forefinger. This is a very distinctive mark in a highly visible location that would likely have had him immediately detained by any police or border officials he encountered. For a detective, this is a trivial disadvantage; for a spy it could be fatal. These sort of tradeoffs/considerations are the sort of details that I would have expected to be part of the book, either during the character's choice of the pistol, or being thankful that he didn't get bitten after shooting it.

-- Douglas Moran
3564983
Absent the hyperbolic praise that the book attributes to itself and the New York Times has puzzling seconded, I would have found this book a disappointment. Since I made the mistake of reading it after being assured of its brilliance, I found it maddeningly facile, judgmental, humorless, lifeless, and dull.

Characters sound the same regardless of age, gender, and purported motivation and don't have any meaningful reason to exist on the page except to suffer under their author's glare. There's a haughty condescension that seems to drip from every page. While there's a multi-character narrative in that the story is told from the perspective of differently-named but not terribly distinguishable characters, there's no real story to be driven -- multiple perspectives on an actress wearing a silly costume or kicking a cell phone hardly reach the threshold of "delv[ing] into humanity's most profound mysteries." I'd suggest that if this book is addressing life mysteries for you, you should consider consulting a therapist or science teacher.
3914472
I agree with those who state the book's premise is very strong.

I found the writing itself only moderately insightful. The blurbs
on the back of the book compare Wolitzer favorably to Updike, but
this is pure hyperbole. Both her moment-to-moment language
formulations, as well as her attempts at pegging / describing how
it feels to be these characters, in and out of love and its confusions,
are utterly pale by comparison to Updike, among many others. Too bad,
since I do feel now and then that this author is able to tell rare
truths about female sexuality, without the writer's distraction of
trying to be clever (feeling "Yes, that's it--it was in plain sight") in
this time and place, early 21st century U.S. east coast white [basically]
suburbia. On the other hand, her handling of the male characters
is clunky and shallow. The spectacle of the author trying, and failing,
at the end to write herself out of the magic is unpleasant. Either
a much stronger rationalization or, better, a simple unexplained Twilight
Zone approach.

And I agree with those who say this book is unfinished, sketchy.
4857349
The story line sounded intriguing, so I downloaded this book for free. Good thing - it would have been a waste of money as well as time. The character development was pathetic and sadly predictable. The spelling and grammar were horrendous... numerous sentences were like "snakes" - winding around and writhing painfully as they tried to go in too many directions. I found myself reading the same sentence 3 or 4 times to figure out what the writer was trying to say. I dislike profanity, and there was so much of it - fortunately, by skimming over the pages of all-cap yelling and F-bombs, I think I spared myself at least a third of the book. I grew weary of the heroine being described as "frail", even "bony". This was particularly annoying as she was exacting her revenge, a time in which descriptors evoking an image of power would have been much more appropriate and welcome.

Take my advice and skip this book unless you are an English teacher who is looking for bad examples.
3398797
Grisham's novels are criticized as "plot-only," something he apparently tries here to combat by presenting us with a plot that contains, excepting precisely one surprise, only the dull humdrum of real life.  The characters are maybe a few ounces north of lightweight.  The only reason to read this is to fulfill some kind of irrational compulsion to read each new Grisham as it appears. (Guilty!)
4446876
you'll be disappointed. Essentially, this is a canon law brief against the Lefebvrist movement. As a lawyer and former medieval history graduate student, I found this mildly interesting, but no more than that. (Mr. Vere, one of the authors, is a canon lawyer, and one wonders whether this book is a slightly modified version of the equivalent of a master's thesis.) The book is typical of the "We're right, you're wrong" approach taken before by Mr. Madrid in his EWTN appearances.

For a short book, this volume contains too many grammatical and typographical errors.

Our Sunday Visitor Press, which has produced good work, markets the book misleadingly by using Mr. Vere's former attraction  to "extreme traditionalism" to imply that this is an "inside look" at the movement. In fact, the book gives only the skimpiest outline, full of lacunae, of the history of Lefebvre's movement, and only hints at what attracts intelligent believers to it. One sighs with nostalgia for the author of ENTHUSIASM, Msgr. Ronald Knox, who, while expressing his disagreements cogently, treats earlier forms of "extreme traditionalism" with an insight, sympathy, and literary grace wholly absent from the current book.
1695934
There are some passages in this book that contain some evocative prose. Aside from those rare bright spots, this book fails to deliver on pretty much all fronts. The characters are shallow, unconvincing -- they are 16-year-olds in bodies and minds of mid-20-somethings. Reading this book is like watching a filmed version where the teens are played by over-the-hill, way-passed-teenage actors that not only do not look the part, but no care was given to make them sound the part.

One of the girls in the book was given an annoying obsession with Kurt Cobain (Nirvana). Every other sentence she utters has some reference to Kurt. You start to wonder what relevance that has to these proceedings in the book.

The plot involves two misfit teenage girls banding together to get back at the popular queen bee of the school, who also happens to be a total irredeemable bitch. Oh, and there is a suicide of the said queen bitch's boyfriend, which starts the book off, that ties together with the main thread. There's constant flashbacks to pick up the pieces of the whole story.

All that may sound intriguing, but the way this book is structured kills any momentum it should rightly have. It's meandering, uninteresting, unconvincing, and the overall effect is it rings completely false. By the time the story reaches its climax, I thought to myself the journey was not worth the payoff. All that meandering b.s. for this? At 350 pages this book is about 300 pages too long.
2846680
This book, which has been skillfully marketed with the usual hoopla, turns out to be nothing but a superficial distillation of other people's editorialing extracted from various sources like the NYT, the FT, and the WSJ.  (As if those publications ever had a clue about anything.)  A complete waste of money.
505202
Very generic and shallow "study" of Fischer, the chess genius. The documentary does not focus on chess at all (and rightfully so, since the general public would have no way of appreciating the man's talent for the game) - but does not go deep at all at the details of his personal life. Things like his failed quest to cheat on the Karpov match in 1975 (the real reason the match never took place was Fischer's insistence on getting an illegal 10-8 score advantage) , his lack of romantic relationships (or interest in them!) throughout his entire life up to the moment he won the crown (and much longer after that!), the tremendous financial backing provided to him by some wealthy patrons of the Manhattan chess club in New York who paid his rent and many other things, his continued betrayal of every single friend (Jackie Beers a notable example), his absolutely retarded behavior outside the chessboard (he was closer to idiot savant than genius), the loss of several millions left with the bank after the second match with Spassky, etc., etc. Of particular interest would be his fear of losing the title to Karpov, the first soviet rival younger than Fisher and the most talented player of a new generation not interested in meeting Fischer's Najdorf defense with Bc4!. It was that fear that led Fischer to make it impossible to have the match.

What we have here is a very superficial rethread of previously published material on Fischer. Nothing new or particularly interesting for anyone fairly familiar with Fisher's life.

Disclaimer: did not buy CD. Saw documentary on HBO Go (through Time Warner Cable).
1522724
Wow, did this miss the mark. You can get the basic storyline for this film from the Amazon review. Sounds intriguing, right? Well, the filmmaker desperately wanted to make a different kind of movie, and the desperation shows. This film tries so damn hard to be full of "interesting characters" that everything comes off like a student film. This is most obvious in the flashback storyteller, an old woman named Angela, who we are supposed to think of as cool and vaguely hip because she can talk trash with the black kid that breaks into her house. Good Christ, this was a bad movie. Obvious and superficial. The director's so-called "homage" to various film genres are just simply poor rip offs. Sort of like the rappers talking tonelessly over former hits. I guess if you have no talent, an "homage" is as close as you're going to come.
3739049
I was excited about this book and felt optimistic after reading through the reviews, however, a disappointment  was soon to follow. There is a substantial mount of filler and very little actual content involved here. In addition to a mildly condescending tone in which it was written, the pages there in will only serve as a reminder in common sense. If you have ever thought about living an unconventional life than most of what you will read has already been on your radar or occurred to you at some point. Flip through this one in the book store if you must, and you will find that that is enough.