Reviews and Comments

I liked the book, but it didn't get into the films as much as I'd hoped. It focuses almost exclusively on the father's life, not even getting into his son's as much as I thought.

I had a hard time putting this book down when I needed to do something besides read. The story is very interesting, and a lot is revealed about the setting and situation through the story instead of using basic boring description.

I've heard people complain about how this book treats female characters as being very flat and not very intelligent, but it seems that Teela is the only flat female character. Halrloprillalar is only flat because she doesn't have very many pages to develop.

I have the rest of the Ringworld series and I will read those as well.

I can't say enough! Douglas Adams has mastered the art of dry, ironic humor. So far, I've talked to people who love the book, and people who hate it; there seem to be no "it's OK" people. Interesting. I will definitely keep the rest of the series on my list.

I liked this book quite a bit. I found the reviews on the cover to be very accurate; it was indeed difficult to put the book down or keep track of how long I had been reading.

The book seemed similar in many ways to some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Socio-political issues, interpersonal relations, history... All intertwined like a fine tapestry.

Only annoyance was Mahlon Burden's burdening me with too much of his speaking in the end. :P

Unlike the last book I read, [b:Time Bomb|6597736|Time Bomb (Alex Delaware, #5)|Jonathan Kellerman|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413ziMpVORL.SL75.jpg|2644300], this one seemed lacking. While I read it in practically one sitting (the whole thing in about 12 hours, including breaks), and it was a page-turner, the story seemed empty. It was kind of like any of the horror films I've seen in my time. Lots of senseless violence, with no explanation.

Entertaining as a diversion, but I don't see myself buying any more of Koontz's works if this is any indication of what he usually publishes.

Simplexity was one of those books that I read cover-to-cover with the least number of stops possible. The subject matter is intriguing; the prose, captivating. I found the book hard to put down, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule. (It kept me up all night until past 05:00 one day.)

The only real complaint I have is that I was left wanting more. Many good examples were provided in the book, but not enough to sate my curiosity. I could have read a book five times the length on the subject. But I did glean a few more related books for my to-read shelf from this text, so maybe those will help when I get to them.

As a purely pedantic comment, the frequency of editing errors climbed toward the end. Some mistakes were simple typos that were overlooked; but I winced at the use of "principle" instead of "principal", and at the misspelling "siezed" (one of the English language's notorious exceptions to the "I before E" rule).

But don't take this review the wrong way: It's very likely that you will find this book to be thoroughly engrossing, even if you're a pedant like me.

I suppose it could be helpful to some students, but to be honest, I don't think it helped me that much. My score on the ACT was quite respectable, but I think most of it was just me. A month of studying this book didn't change much.

However, it is very useful for becoming familiar with the ACT's different question types.

Note: There are some references to key plot points in this review. I don't consider them to be spoilers per se—not enough to check the "contains spoilers" box—but it should be noted that you might have a hint at what happens if you pay close attention to my writing below.

Fireproof was an engrossing, captivating book... until I hit the second half, which proselytizes Jesus up the wazoo. After it started proselytizing, the story became merely interesting. It fell into predictability at some points, I thought, including correlation of the number of chapters with the number of days in "The Love Dare", an integral part of the plot. However, there were enough plot twists and surprises that it remained interesting up to the very end.

What I did find somewhat less than believable (minor spoiler coming up) was Caleb smashing his computer to bits. It didn't seem like something a person in his situation would do. Stash it in the attic, basement, or garage, maybe; but smash? Eh, at least it facilitated a bit of humor with the elderly neighbor.

I think the story could have been told without so much specific emphasis on Jesus, God, and Scriptures, but I am aware that it would have been a very different book in that case. My sensitivity to religious ministry notwithstanding, it would have been nice if the summary on the back included some reference to the Christian component of the story. It's major enough, it should be mentioned. (Of course, that would give away part of the story.)

The book is a novelization of a screenplay written and produced by members of a Baptist church in Georgia. One of their previous works was Facing the Giants, which apparently reached international audiences, though didn't become famous enough—I guess—for me to hear about it. But both stories are hailed by Christian ministries; Facing the Giants—a $100,000 football drama produced by untrained church volunteers—grossed $10 million in theatres following its release in 2006, and became a top-selling DVD in Christian bookstores.