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jaysteady's reviews
212 reviews
The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan
4.0
I'm just going to come out and say it - I've enjoyed reading this series far more than I enjoyed reading Harry Potter. I'm sorry.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster
3.0
This was a very annoying book.
I absorbed all the advice that he gives in the book, and I can see a difference in my "close reading" when analyzing text, so I can say that the book achieved its purpose.
BUT as a student (part of his intended audience) reading this with a purpose of "learning how to read literature like a professor", I haven't read even 5% of the hundreds of works of classical literature that he uses as examples, and rambles on about for pages and pages. The examples and therefore a bulk of the text were practically useless. His examples consisted of 'info dumps' about plots in various books and what they 'meant' through an analytical reader's lens. His methods were helpful for about three chapters until they got complicated and unfamiliar, making the follow 12 (about) hard to follow and un-relatable.
I absorbed all the advice that he gives in the book, and I can see a difference in my "close reading" when analyzing text, so I can say that the book achieved its purpose.
BUT as a student (part of his intended audience) reading this with a purpose of "learning how to read literature like a professor", I haven't read even 5% of the hundreds of works of classical literature that he uses as examples, and rambles on about for pages and pages. The examples and therefore a bulk of the text were practically useless. His examples consisted of 'info dumps' about plots in various books and what they 'meant' through an analytical reader's lens. His methods were helpful for about three chapters until they got complicated and unfamiliar, making the follow 12 (about) hard to follow and un-relatable.