Superficial and Unreal
592070
Meryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses but this movie is not her calibre of movie. This movie made me realize why I watch foreign movies.
3167452
This book about the American war against Spain in the late 19th century in Cuba is described as "popular history", i.e. a superficial account of events of the past with the emphasis on characters and action and a lack of depth and rigor.

The book, written by a former Time magazine journalist, is an exercise in self-indulgence in which the reader finds himself in the hands of an author who sets his own rules.

The fact that not a single work in Spanish is mentioned in the bibliography shows that the author did not even try to see how the Spaniards - and the Cubans - saw the conflict.

Even though he constantly criticizes the condescending and "racist" approach to the Cuban conflict by Americans at the time, he does not seem to have made any effort to do some original research and find out how Spaniards and Cubans felt about what was going on.

The result is little more than a series of connected articles which are presented through the lives of five influential figures - Theodore Roosevelt, William Randoph Hearst, philosopher William James and Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and Thomas Reed.

As Roosevelt and Hearst and are the only interesting characters, the other three become bit players of little relevance.

There is plenty of action and gossip - and it is quite enjoyable at times - but no historical depth and the writer makes no real attempt to link the war with the resulting strained relationship between the US and Cuba.

This is a pity because there are probably many Americans who do not even know that the US helped Cuba gain independence and then ran the place almost as a colony thereby losing its credibility and leading to the rise of Communist dictator Fidel Castro. The parallels with Iraq are obvious.
2210802
Don't know where to start on how superficial and shoddy this really is.  Fukuyama is way out of his league in trying to explain the relevant cultural evolution tied to the theory (it's as if he didn't even bother researching the serious science out there) and proceeds at a very superficial level to take very general features and give them startlingly naive, out of context, neo-liberal social theory interpretations.
  I should have stopped reading before I got to the (short and ridiculous) chapter on how the Church ruined families....but I've had a lot of respect for some of his essays in the past and was trying to read around the typical liberal tripe to see if he had some real insights.  Sadly, couldn't find any.  Some of the pitiful, terribly researched figures on conceptual items could have been done by my 10-year old.  This is really not worth wasting time or money on, sorry for Fukuyama fans who expected something better.
3502995
Although this book is not tritely written, the characters are shallow and the plot is contrived.
2495706
I kept reminding myself that this is the author's first book. She needs to get beyond the shallow concept of time travel, and give these character's more depth, and make the locations feel less dream-like. I never had the feeling she actually had been to Scotland, or had a grip on life in the 1500s. Physical movement, battles and injuries don't feel real. Dialog is unrealistic. I'll be looking for improvements in her next books.
3283032
Superficial and predictable. Disappointed in the lack of depth of the characters
175493
As some of the readers have noticed, the character development in this book is unsatisfyingly superficial, as is the story itself, as dramatic tension is amateuristically lost. Allthough I don't mind the occasional lesbian quasi-erotic pulp, the writing is just absolutely apalling, and the editing or the lack of editing is obvious.
2875375
This book was overly dramatic without any reason. The main character had a much inflated view and her family background was literally unbelievable. The main theme was everyone in this novel suffered to varying degrees.
2734470
The writer has decided that if she tells us that this is a great love often enough through the characters we might believe it.  It doesn't work that way.  This is superficial, the characters have no appeal and the addition of Dalton seeing Rose as a child to explain things at the last minute is really sad, and I don't mean the cry tears kind.  It had promise but the style of the writing is also superficial and the books might have worked as one book instead of dragging out something for the sake of calling it a series.
3347619
I posted my review of this novel over on Goodreads.  Let it be said that there were extremely few instances where this book read authentically.  It struck me as a highly fictionalized (and unrealistic, glorifying, insulting) view of what life on a psychiatric ward is like, and the rest of it read as a didactic lecture on how antidepressants work at the chemical level.  Ugh.
72374
If I had known ahead of time that this was multiple sermons disguised as a fantasy, I would never have gotten this book. Just one example--a bird circles the heroine and drops a feather; she picks it up and knows at once that it is "compassion, that unconditional love through which man comes closest to God." Excuse me? A feather = compassion?? Also note that a WOMAN is picking up something that denotes the route through which MAN comes closest to God. Throughout the text, females are denigrated and diminished; in once case, when death rituals are being performed for men who lost their lives in a battle, the heroine cannot participate, because, the author writes, "Tathea was a woman, so she did not count."

I am religious, but when I pick up a fantasy or sci fi book, I'm not looking for a sermon. Even more importantly, I am not seeking a religious perspective that tells me I don't count, that I am unimportant because I'm a woman, not even once. It is obvious that Tathea WILL "count," because she is apparently the Chosen One who will bring the Book of Truth to the world.

Character development is nonexistent; all the heroes and heroines are too good to be true and lack depth, while all the bad guys are truly evil--and lack depth. I think the author intended to give the heroine depth by starting with a tragedy in her life; however, her reactions to that tragedy lack any real connection with reality. There is no real plot; the book consists of a series of Trials for the heroine and an angel who accompanies her on part of her life journey. In each trial, there is a battle--a simplistic battle, at that--between the forces of Good and Evil, and Good (our heroine, of course) wins quite easily. Too easily, really: even though the author tries to dress each trial up with descriptions of hardship, somehow they come across as very brief and surrealistic, and the healing at the end of each trial is very easy and without real thought of what the trial meant.

The author is apparently trying to proselytize her religious beliefs via science fantasy. For some, she'll be successful. However, the farther into the book I read, the more tiresome and even nauseating it became, and I finally gave up.

If you want your religion incorporated into the fantasy fiction you read, this book is for you. If, like me, you prefer to read real religious texts that discuss religious perspectives and beliefs from a nonfiction basis and, when you read fiction, simply enjoy a good story with well-developed characters and plot, then this book is NOT for you.
677459
I thought I would like this book and I tried to like it - but in the end the poor writing and its lack of emotional depth or honesty coupled with an unappealing misogyny turned me off.

Constance, the heroine, has been haunting her stately home near Bedford Massachusetts for 170 years, ever since she fell off the widow's walk on the same day that her beloved whaler husband was lost at sea near Cape Horn. She is invisible and doesn't need to eat or drink - although she can if she wants. But she feels heat and cold and steals clothes from the succession of owners and residents the house has seen - until architect Garrett Richmond shows up to buy and renovate the home. He can see her -- and when their hands touch they both feel an overwhelming desire and sense of wellbeing.

It's a plot that's been done many times before - but that doesn't mean it can't be done again. What it needs to make it work is a sense of longing, a deep emotional truth. But that's exactly what author Robert Barclay can't deliver with his plodding prose and his predictable writing. Everything is explained, nothing is shown or felt. We simply don't believe in this love between these cardboard characters. We don't feel their desire and the book is not sexy. There is one sex scene which I read feeling like uninvited and reluctant intruder wishing I were elsewhere.

The plot too is as creaky as an old whaler rounding the horn. It includes an ill-absorbed duel scene that has nothing to do with anything but seems to be there to explain the provenance of a scar. There are also some references to slavery and the Underground Railroad that go nowhere and an outing to the local mall where the straitlaced Constance, who has never left the house since 1840, loses herself in the delights of Victoria's Secret. And the editing is sloppy. I noted at least two examples when the author writes that Constance has been stuck in the house for 17 centuries - instead of 17 decades.

Yes Constance feels nostalgia for the good old days. In one passage, doubtless expressing the author's viewpoint, she bemoans the fact that 21st century women have lost so much through their emancipation. "Despite our relative lack of rights (that would be the right to vote, to own property, enter professions, initiate divorces etc etc) most women were treated with true respect, Men opened doors for them, bowed to them and kissed the backs of their hands, and spoke in far more living and respectful ways than they do now  It's as if all of the rights and privileges that women have fought for and won throughout the years have been paid for with a contradictory increase in crassness and crudity."

In a weird and convoluted ending to this book, Constance gets to return to the good old 1840s. I guess the author wouldn't have minded going with her back to those days when women knew their place and men kissed the backs of their hands.
261172
This book happened so fast that I don't think that has a plot. The sentence are short, an annoying thing and the characters are presented in a very superficial way.
117416
This book is an enigma; it is both very shallow and rather disturbing all at the same time. The New Mexico rural setting makes things seem like it is extremely difficult to survive. Then you are taken to a city, and you find that conditions are far "better" (in a relative sense) than what they were outside the city.

Riley, as a character, seems to be forever waiting to be rescued; she has little self-reliance. As such, I do not find myself cheering for her in hardly any way. The amount of violence, especially sexually-based violence, seems to be more than even what a book of this genre would need to make a point. It also seems to be very "man-hating". Granted, males can be gross and disturbing, especially when taken down to their base instincts. But this book presents almost no positive male figures past Riley's step-dad. Also, emotions turn on a dime, going from hate of gender differences to lust/love with no real middle ground.

The society is poorly presented. Other than the "old-west" of the NM desert and part of one city (Albequerque), there is no larger structure at all. The reasons for the cataclysm are glossed over (too many bad chemicals by the big bad companies), and the wider societal structure of trying to get beyond the problem of few girls to repopulate society is almost never mentioned. Even then, it is portrayed as only an attempt at control by the forces of evil.

I went into this book knowing the subject matter to be dark and somewhat unsettling. After finishing it, I want nothing to do with how the society might be saved or the lives of any of the characters bettered. As such, I do not plan to read further in the series; I cannot see any hope for the society or how Riley might help improve it. Your opinion may vary, but for me, I felt generous in giving three stars. That was mostly for the work the author obviously put into it, little else.
4306641
I found this latest in the "Killing" canon of bombastic author-commentator  Bill O'Reilly somehow superficial and sort of pointless.  And brief. (Granted I read it after plowing through two detail-packed volumes of an Elvis Presley bio so perhaps Killing Reagan suffered from the comparison.)  Throughout I found myself thinking, "When am I going to read something I really didn't already know?"  I am left assume it is targeted at and tailored to the hoards of great unwashed American "pinheads" who know (and care) little about history and are hampered by ever-diminishing attention spans.  I concede this is a great book for those "folks" for whom O'Reilly is paternalistically "looking out".  I was hoping for some shocking revelation or........something.  The only thing I didn't really know was that Reagan's mental functioning was assessed and evaluated with an eye to removing him from office.

I have read "Killing Kennedy", I was disgusted at the way Oswald was unjustly vilified as an assassin and I question how well researched that book was if Oswald's guilt as the "lone shooter" was a basic premise.  And so it is that O'Reilly has little credibility.  I think he is "in the tank" for those who want that (per)version of history to once again be promoted and foisted onto the American public.  And so it was with a jaundiced eye that I read "Killing Reagan".  Once again there is the hero brought low by some gun-wielding psycho; these books are becoming pretty  black and white as well as formulaic.

I don't see where the "Killing" of Reagan takes place.  I have heard the author make an unconvincing case for the book's title but I think the use of "Killing" is more to keep in consistent with the other titles in the franchise.  Reagan was shot, didn't DIE either literally or figuratively, and lived to complete, more or less, two presidential terms of office.

In a nutshell: Reagan was a nice guy with an alcoholic father and a mother who ended up with senile dementia.  He started out in Hollywood with a promising career but never quite achieved A list status.  His first marriage failed, after which he was sexually very promiscuous, got Nancy pregnant and married her.  She was a very strong and guiding force in his political life (using astrology to guide his presidency)..  Reagan sees the threat of Communism in Hollywood and takes a stand against it. Becomes involved in politics, is elected Gov. of California.  Tries for a run at the presidency in 1976 but fails to be nominated by the GOPg but gives a terrific speech at the convention.  Runs in '80, wins.  Is shot and nearly dies; his recovery is not as fast or complete as the White House makes it appear. Turns around a dismal economy.  Buddies up with Mrs. Thatcher.  Invades Grenada. Iran-Contra hearings. Demands the Berlin Wall be torn down.  Has problems with his memory and concentration.  Nancy is very protective of him and usurps a lot of power in his administration.  Dementia progresses.  Out of office, he has an accident in which he suffered a head injury which probably accelerated his mental deterioration.  The decline continues until he doesn't even know he had ever been president.  He dies.. Roll credits. That's it, my Reader's Digest Reader's Digest version.  Now you don't have to buy this book.
229021
I am not very keen on modern literature and this one just kind of shows what modern literature lacks. The story is unrealistic, the characters are superficial and silly, it does not add a thing to our knowledge of human nature or the world. The writing is basic, the words lack beauty. But, if you want something very light to read in the Summer, this is a book for you - you will read it in a second and without having to have a simple thought.
438430
Although the problems confronting aging women caught amidst responsibilities to their children, their parents, themselves, and others is very real, this superficial book shed no real light on the subject.