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Various book reviews.
Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
July 30th, 2006 | No Comments
Author: J. K. Rowling
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Rating: 
Buy Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Amazon.com
The sixth book in the much ballyhooed Harry Potter series is one of Rowling’s weakest efforts to date. Part of the problem is that with only one book left in the series, Rowling must cram in all the exposition and backstory that got cut out of previous books so that the series finale makes sense and is free to plow straight through to the finish.
While Order of the Phoenix had darker and better developed characters, Half-Blood Prince brings back the caricatures from the first four books of the series. At times I felt that the only indication that these characters had grown at all over their last five years at Hogwarts was the excess of romantic entanglements. Perhaps some readers enjoy the many couplings, triangles, and endless snogging, but I find them a bit tiresome. The major supporting characters from books past, including most of the extremely large cast of book five, are largely relegated to the background. I don’t think this helps the book any, as the flatness of the main characters becomes much more obvious when they’re the only ones to focus on.
Book Review: Eats, Shoots & Leaves
June 5th, 2006 | No Comments
Rating: 
Buy Eats, Shoots & Leaves on Amazon.com
This book is not so much a guide to proper punctuation (though I did learn a thing or two), but a free-form rant on the sad state of punctuation in English today. Since I am an unapologetic (if imperfect) grammar Nazi, I loved it.
Book Review: Fast Food Nation
May 31st, 2006 | No Comments
Author: Eric Schlosser
Publisher: Perennial
Rating: 
Buy Fast Food Nation on Amazon.com
The entire time I was reading this book, I was having the worst craving for a McDonald’s Crispy Chicken Sandwich. The same thing happened when I was watching Supersize Me. Go figure.
I expected this book to be a The Jungle-style grossout exposé of the fast food industry, but it didn’t turn out to be that way. Instead, it is a fascinating account of the rise of fast food from wholesome All-American fare to today’s modern evil empires (though arguably, evil empires are still All-American).
