Having the right teachers can make all the difference, of course. But then they're hamstrung by the curriculum, and no one really wanting to engage even if the teacher does manage to make it interesting because they don't want to be seen as a teacher's pet, and in the end it's all for nought and half the class will…

I'm sure that really kindled a love of literature in your young hearts!

There's not much that won't interest me if it's reasonably well written. It's just a case of getting into the style, I guess.

I didn't enjoy the whole "talking it to death" part either. I'm not sure whether that was a function of age (or rather, youth), or of the setting (school was, um, not a comfortable environment for me), or whether it really was done as boringly as possible, but I never felt it added to my (already limited) appreciation…

Indeed. *sigh*

I finished The Devil in the White City, which, to be honest, really dragged in some places. I couldn't quite figure out what the author hoped to achieve by tying these two concurrent but mostly unrelated narratives together; I rather suspect he wanted to write a book about the World's Fair and got told to spice it up…

I only got partway through The Dice Man before giving up in complete disgust. I found it really obnoxious. This was a long time ago, though, so it's possible that it was meant to feel that way and I just wasn't getting it.

I rarely enjoyed anything I had to read for class

That way they can't grow into workshy scrounging adults. It's sound logic.

Aren't all hornets killer hornets?

So Zoom, creepy supervillain, will happily inject himself with whatever Harrison Wells hands him claiming it's speedforce. Yet somehow Harrison Wells, genius superscientist, has no idea how to defeat Zoom. Right.

It's not like she doesn't have a point, but that was straight out of the Laurel Lance book of needlessly making a female character uptight and unlikeable.

Happy Birthday!

I've certainly had the odd "but how would you know?" moment where it feels like the line between fact and fictional account has been blurred a bit. More annoying about this particular book is that it's full of little "the worst was yet to come" hooks that feel like someone constantly tugging on your sleeve and…

In a perfect world, every day would be falafel day.

Finished The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, which I enjoyed a lot. It's a very well-built world inhabited by interesting characters, and while one part of the plot is perhaps a bit too much of a lightweight fantasy (albeit one I rather liked), and it's somehow a very quick read for over 400 pages, it's mostly quite…

I found Life After Life rather *shrug* too. If you figure out, by the end, what's supposed to be so great about it, please let us know, because I feel like I must have missed something.

Same.

If she walks, how much do you think she'll get elsewhere?

Well, this has significantly upped my grouch factor for the evening.