good arguments book review

Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard

Two-time world champion debater and   former   coach of the Harvard debate team, Bo Seo tells the inspiring story of his life in competitive debating and reveals the timeless secrets of effective communication and persuasion

When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he did not speak English, and, unsurprisingly, struggled at school. But, then, in fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. Immediately, he was hooked. It turned out, perhaps counterintuitively, that debating was the perfect activity for someone shy and unsure of himself. It became a way for Bo not only to find his voice, but to excel socially and academically. And he’s not the only one. Far from it: presidents, Supreme Court justices, and CEOs are all disproportionally debaters. This is hardly a coincidence. By tracing his own journey from immigrant kid to world champion, Seo shows how the skills of debating—information gathering, truth finding, lucidity, organization, and persuasion—are often the cornerstone of successful careers and happy lives. Drawing insights from its strategies, structure, and history, Seo teaches readers the skills of competitive debate, and in doing so shows how they can improve their communication with friends, family, and colleagues alike. He takes readers on a thrilling intellectual adventure into the eccentric and brilliant subculture of competitive debate, touching on everything from the radical politics of Malcom X to Artificial Intelligence. Seo proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, far from being a source of conflict, good-faith debate can enrich our daily lives. Indeed, these good arguments are essential to a flourishing democracy, and are more important than ever at time when bad faith is all around, and our democracy seems so imperiled.

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Book Review: Good Arguments is an educational look into the art of debating well

• December 18, 2022
• Good Arguments
• Scribner Australia

If anyone knows how to argue with finesse it is Bo Seo. The journalist and author is a two-time winner of the Debating World Championships and a former debate coach. In his debut book, Good Arguments , he distills many of the lessons he learnt over the years so that we may know how to debate with more panache.

Good Arguments  straddles the lines between several genres. On the one hand, readers receive a how-to guide to debating and listening. On the other, we get Seo’s memoir. Readers will likely gravitate to one side more than the other.

Seo’s story is an interesting one. He was born in South Korea, with his parents uprooting him and the family to migrate to Australia when he was eight. Initially he was very quiet and content to avoid conflict at all costs. But, once he started school debating, he was hooked and came to appreciate the true form of this art.

The lessons that are detailed in this book seem more prescient the ever in our world of fake news and spin. Seo’s writing as he recounts his years of competitions is entertaining and relatable. Also included in the book is some commentary and analysis, including a deconstruction of the presidential campaign debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This chapter, in particular, is an insightful examination of the tactics employed by bullies and how they can derail proceedings.

In this book, Seo also examines other points from history, such as Malcolm X’s story and work as an orator. The rise of technology and Artificial Intelligence’s growing capabilities to argue well are also examined. Seo packs a lot into this book, not least some useful tools for having good arguments.

Good Arguments is a book that could have made for dry reading. But, instead Seo injects the proceedings with the right amount of colour and insights to really engage readers. This book is one that should be studied at schools as our increasingly virtual lives have made discourse a very one-sided affair. As we know, there is often so much more to the story and Good Arguments embodies this by making a case and doing it well.

THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)

Bo Seo’s Good Arguments is available now from Scribner Australia. Grab yourself a copy from Booktopia HERE .

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Good Arguments: The Power of Debate to Reduce Conflict and Reach Better Outcomes Hardcover – 7 June 2022

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• Print length 342 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Penguin Pr
• Publication date 7 June 2022
• Dimensions 15.88 x 2.97 x 23.6 cm
• ISBN-10 0593299515
• ISBN-13 978-0593299517
• See all details

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Product description

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved..

How to find the debate

On a Monday morning in January 2007, a couple of months after my graduation from elementary school, the green gates at the entrance to Barker College served as a portal to a new world. For me and the other twelve-year-olds on the first day of middle school, the contrast between where we had been and where we were now felt stark. My former classmates had galumphed around the playground in loose interpretations of the school uniform, but the students on this campus, in their starched white shirts, seemed to be facsimiles of the children on the admissions brochures. Whereas the grounds at the Bush School had sprawled and tangled, the manicured campus of this all-boys middle school intimated an order of things-one I had good reason to learn, and fast.

By lunchtime, I had realized this would be no easy feat. In a school with a couple thousand kids, it made less sense to speak of one order than of multiple. The classroom conformed to one set of expectations-students referred to teachers as "sir" and "miss" and politely raised their hands to speak-while outside, on the playground, jungle rules prevailed. One carried on a certain way in the light-filled atrium of the music building and another way in the mildewy locker rooms next to the gymnasium. The place was a kaleidoscope of expectations.

Over my three and a half years in Australia, I had grown into a fine code-switcher. I had learned to toggle between the intimate language of home and the cheerful, shallow vernacular that school seemed to reward. However, the problem at Barker was that its rules and codes were illegible to me. What jokes were appropriate and when? How much should one reveal about oneself and to whom? I gleaned answers to these questions only by tripping over them.

In these first weeks of school, I never regressed to silence, but I found my comforts where I could. I fell in with a group of laconic, easygoing Aussie kids named-for neat alliterative effect-Jim, Jon, and Jake. Whereas the most ambitious kids in our class shook and fizzed and used every conversation to prove their virtues, the Js seemed to take things in their stride. In the afternoons, we shared a box of hot chips from the kebab shop-a staple of Australian takeout food-and not more than a handful of words.

What I never told them was that I had come to the school with a goal of my own: to join the debate team. Since my first competitive round in the fifth grade, I'd had only fleeting opportunities to revisit the activity. But I knew that the culture of debate was well-entrenched in Sydney's middle and high schools, most of whom maintained a team that competed, weekly, in a league. Debate occupied an odd place in the life of these schools. Like chess or Quiz Bowl, it provided a competitive outlet for unathletic kids but, unlike these other indoor activities, enjoyed a certain credibility on account of the reputation that its alums went on to do big things.

At Barker, anyone could attend debate training on Wednesday afternoons, but only one team of four students in each year group could represent the school at our local league on Friday evenings. To join the team, one had to audition. Ahead of trials in the first week of February, I sussed out the competition-"So this debate thing . . . ?"-but few people seemed interested. Perhaps this was going to be a piece of cake, I thought. Thank goodness for sports and other distractions.

But I was mistaken: the first round of trials, set to begin at four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, attracted more than thirty kids. The white-paneled room on the top floor of the English building felt like the inside of a refrigerator; as the students arrived, alone or in pairs, dressed for the outside heat, they shuddered. Presiding over the auditions was the year coordinator, Miss Tillman, a history teacher with a stoic air.

Miss Tillman explained that we would not do a full debate for the audition. Instead, each student would be given a topic, a side (affirmative or negative), and thirty minutes in which to write a speech that covered two arguments for their position. In elementary school, we had prepared our cases over the span of weeks, often with the aid of teachers and the internet, but now we had to go solo against a strict time limit. "This audition format won't show me and the other judges everything," Miss Tillman said, "but it should reveal your . . . responsiveness."

In the waiting room, I stumbled on another discovery: some trialists seemed confident about their chances. The students who had attended Barker since the third grade made it known in the subtle way of twelve-year-olds that they had been successful debaters on the junior circuit and that they expected to continue their run. "We were successful on the junior circuit and expect to continue our run," one of the trialists said, before scanning the room for signs of comprehension.

Out of nowhere, I heard Miss Tillman call my name. I wondered whether she would give me some additional instructions or words of encouragement. Instead, she handed me a white envelope that contained a scrap of paper with a few handwritten words: "That we should have compulsory military service. Affirmative."

After I read that last word, things began to move fast. Everything before the envelope had been potential energy-a mind in search of an object, tension in need of release-but now the setting, a windowless nook next to the main waiting room, crackled with consequence. I found the experience of prep to be oddly liberating. The topic transported me to a new environment and assigned me a new identity. I went from being a twelve-year-old, uncertain of his beliefs and others' expectations of him, to an advocate in some chamber of deliberation.

The fact that I had no say in what I had to argue added, paradoxically, to this sense of freedom. I felt at ease to flirt with ideas, unencumbered by expectations of consistency or deep conviction (I didn't choose the side), and to explore every dark corner of contentious issues (I didn't choose the topic). In debate, the other word for topic was motion and, for these thirty minutes, that was exactly what I experienced.

Then, as Miss Tillman knocked on the door, I fell down to earth. In the audition room, a panel of three teachers sat behind a long desk. One of them, a rotund biology teacher whom I had met during orientation, managed a sympathetic look, but the others looked ashen-faced, worn down by the waves of children.

I found my place at the center of the room and focused my gaze in the gap between two panelists' faces-an ersatz form of eye contact that I hoped would pass for engagement. Then I began: "Everyone has a duty to ensure a country's safety. When we fulfill that duty through national service, we get more united societies, better armies, and happier lives." The combination of nerves and an eagerness to get noticed increased, with each word, my pitch and volume. I reached a near shout and spent the next minute adjusting down.

My speech had two points: that every citizen had a responsibility to serve and that this would result in a safer nation. In truth, the material resembled less a proper debate speech (whatever that was) than a rambling and passionate plea. "Look in your hearts and ask what you owe your fellow citizens," I implored in one of the more cringeworthy moments. However, I felt that some of my points on the effect of mandatory military service on national security had landed with the judges. As I spoke about the importance of giving political leaders a more direct stake in the fate of military operations, one of the exhausted judges seemed to briefly rouse from her stupor. The other speakers in my time slot were good but not unimaginably so. I felt I had a shot.

The next day at school, shortly after the start of recess, a notice appeared on the bulletin board near the canteen: debating team-year seven. Mine was the last name on the list, above the instruction to attend the first training session with the coach at four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. Like the topic itself, the notice felt like a ticket made out to someplace new.

That the seventh-grade coach, a lanky college student named Simon, had been one of the most successful debaters of his year group at Barker seemed an improbable fact about him. Standing at the front of the room, Simon was the shade of pomegranate seeds-wine-dark and uneven. The edges of his voice crackled with self-doubt.

It was 4:00 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, nearly one week after the trials, and around a dozen students had gathered in the same air-conditioned room where auditions had been held. The four of us who had been selected for the team-Stuart, Max, Nathan, and I-sat near one another but exchanged little more than pleasantries. Of the group, I gravitated toward Nathan, a sensitive kid who put me in the mind of a naturalist. None of us acknowledged the chilling fact that only two weeks remained until the start of the league.

Then the session began and I witnessed a transformation. As Simon stood at the whiteboard and spoke about debate, he seemed to become a different person. Some internal force filled out his posture and rounded out his words. The color remained in his face but now took on a more vital, reddish hue. He uncapped a marker, then, turning to the board, wrote one word: topic.

"Cast your mind back to the last argument you had," Simon said. "Recall as much as you possibly can about the encounter: the setting at the particular time of day, the specific arguments, claims, and even insults.

"Now answer this question: What was the disagreement about?"

I thought about a series of tiffs with an old friend from the Bush School who now attended a middle school in a distant part of the city. The conversations were vivid in my mind, but I found Simon's question hard to answer. For some arguments, I could not remember the instigating dispute at all. As with bad dreams, the contents disappeared even as their effects lingered. For others, I could remember too much. These disagreements began with some trivial dispute and accumulated more mass-other disputes, perceived slights, past baggage-any one of which could be described as what the arguments were about.

"This is a problem. If you don't know the subject of the argument, how can you decide what or what not to say, which points to pursue or let go, and whether you want to have the argument at all?"

Simon referred to research from sociologists and linguists that posited that people are better at "talking topically" than actually staying on topic. That is, we give the impression of being relevant-often through a series of verbal cues such as "on that point"-while subtly changing the subject. Since most of us enjoy breezy, free-flowing conversation, we rarely take the time to consciously reflect on what we are talking about. "So we tend to drift, covering lots of ground but moving further from resolution," Simon said.

"However, debaters do the opposite. Every round begins with a topic. That's the first thing we debaters write-on our legal pads, on the whiteboard in the prep room. Consider it an act of naming: we name our disagreement and, with it, the purpose for our gathering."

Over the next two hours, Simon taught us more about topics than I had imagined possible-or healthy.

According to Simon, the topic is a statement of the main point on which two or more people disagree:

That Jane is an unreliable friend.

That the government should not bail out the big banks.

An easy test for whether a proposition is an appropriate topic is to write it in the negative form:

Both sides of the disagreement should be able to say that the statements fairly describe what they and their opponents believe.

The defining characteristic of a debate topic was that it allowed for two sides. So a general subject area such as "the economy" or "health care" could not be one because it did not identify the particular debate in question. Nor could a topic be a purely subjective opinion, such as "I am cold," since the other person could not argue that "no, you are not cold."

Broadly speaking, people disagreed about three sorts of things-facts, judgments, prescriptions-and each one gave rise to its own type of debate.

Factual disagreements center on claims about the way things are. They take the form "X is Y," where both X and Y are empirically observable features of the world.

Lagos is a megacity.

The crime rate in Paris was lower in 2014 than in 2016.

Normative disagreements concern our subjective judgments about the world-the way things are or ought to be, in our view. They take the form "A should be considered B" or "We have good reason to believe that A is B."

Lying is (should be considered) immoral.

(We have reason to believe that) tomorrow will be better.

Prescriptive disagreements relate to what we should do. These usually take the form "C should D," where C is the actor and D is an action.

Our family should get a gym membership.

The government should not impose limits on freedom of speech.

I found all this plenty interesting, but as the training session drew to a close, I also felt pangs of disappointment. Instead of secret strategies and killer moves, we had been given taxonomies; rather than sharpening our skills, we had taken a bunch of notes. I wondered whether competitive debate, like other high-skill games such as chess, tended toward esoterica until it could no longer sustain an analogy to real life.

However, later that same night, I stumbled on a reason to revisit my concern.

For the first couple of years of our life in Australia, my parents had seldom argued with each other or with me. Disagreements of opinion abounded, but Mum and Dad took the view that fighting about them was an indulgence we could not afford, not while so much work lay ahead of us. Though we had started to argue more openly in the past year or so, we still tended to elide points of conflict. This worked fine most of the time, but when one of us snapped, the resulting arguments were tangled and endless.

At this time, in the spring of 2007, almost four years after our arrival in Sydney, our family had begun to consider naturalizing as Australian citizens. In some respects, this was a bureaucratic decision that came down to such secular concerns as taxation. However, for my dad, the choice took on symbolic magnitude. Dad had been the consistent voice in our family for the importance of maintaining our cultural roots and, for him, the word citizenship carried real weight.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Pr (7 June 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 342 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593299515
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593299517
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 kg 50 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.88 x 2.97 x 23.6 cm
• #264 in Business Communication (Books)
• #977 in Communication & Social Skills (Books)
• #14,620 in Biographies & Autobiographies (Books)

About the author

Bo Seo is a two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Australian national debating team and the Harvard College Debating Union. One of the most recognized figures in the global debate community, he has won both the World Schools Debating Championship and the World Universities Debating Championship. Bo has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, and many other publications. He has worked as a national reporter for the Australian Financial Review and has been a regular panelist on the prime time Australian debate program, The Drum. Bo graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University and received a master’s degree in public policy from Tsinghua University. He is currently a student at Harvard Law School.

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BOOK SUMMARY – Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard

Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us To Listen And Be Heard by Bo Seo (Hardcover; 352 Pages)

Brief Overview

Bo Seo was eight years old when he moved from South Korea to Australia.  He did not know English, was shy, and life was one big attempt to somehow avoid conflict.  

And, then Bo took part in competitive debating.  He was hooked.  Bo Seo became a champion world traveling debater.  This book tells that story from grade school to college.  

The real core of the book, however, is teaching everyone how to debate.  First, we learn the basic parts of competitive debating.  Then, we learn how to apply this to our everyday life.  

The ability to be a skillful debater has the potential to not only help us in our everyday life but to better deal with the many major disputes society deals with in a time when each side seems mainly to be yelling at each other.  Is there another way?

This book, using the frame of the author’s debating career, suggests there just might be.  And, in the process, we learn how to better process the facts and arguments we consume daily.  

Favorite Quote

Now we are used to seeing arguments either as the symptom of some malaise in our society or as a cause of our discontent.  Indeed they are both.  However, my ultimate hope is to convince readers that arguments can be a cure — an instrument to remake the world.  

When we have an argument, it often is seen as a failure, one that can become ugly quickly.  Bo Seo uses this book to provide a means to learn how to argue well, including avoiding the pitfalls of bad arguments.  We have to process lots of facts; we need all the help we can get.  

Should I Read It?

Bo Seo is a two-time world champion debater and coach.  He knows how to frame arguments and perform well in oral contests.  This book shows Bo Seo is also a good writer. 

Bo Seo breaks down the tools of a good argument in a clear fashion with helpful charts and examples. A student or someone who simply wants to learn how to argue and process information better will find this book helpful.  It would be a useful college textbook without being overly academic.  This would be a handy reference guide to have on your shelf.

The material about his debate adventures is more of a mixed bag.  I found the discussions about his debating experience a bit tiresome after a while.  Great. You won another debate in some worldwide locale.  Fine.  Still, these sections were still well-written and fairly engaging.  

Bo Seo also obtained a master’s degree in China.  He does not discuss this in much detail.  Nonetheless, he is quite the world traveler.  There is a taste of travelogue here as well.  

The book is a good mix of the personal and the practical.  There are no pictures but there are endnotes and an index.  I found the final chapter on technology the least interesting.  

Bo Seo went to law school.  If he writes a book in the future on a legal subject, it promises to be interesting.  This one should be for many readers as well.  

Further Reading: How to Use a Four-Corners Debate Lesson in Social Studies Class

Comprehensive Summary

Introduction .

Bo Seo moved with his parents from South Korea to Australia  He had a hard time adapting and eventually found it hard to deal with any type of conflict.  This changed when he experienced debating in fifth grade.  Bo Seo was soon hooked.  And, conflict became his life.  

Bo Seo sought good debate. The book uses his experiences to discuss two forms of debate. First, there is the formalized process of competitive debate.  Second, there are debates in our everyday lives.  Bo Seo argues that competitive debate can teach us all how to disagree better. 

This is a time of polarization, a time of painful division in which we have trouble debating well. Arguments seem painful and useless.  This book will try to help improve the situation.  

1. Topic: How to find the debate 

The book starts with the general format of the book.  Bo Seo talks about his experiences and mixes in some debate lessons.  I will focus on the lessons in my summary.  

We are transferred back to junior high debate tryouts.  He made it though his technique was somewhat lacking.  Then, we get a lesson from a college student debate coach, who at first was not much to look at … until he started to talk about debating.  

The first five chapters discuss the basic principles of competitive debate.

A  topic is a statement on which two or more people disagree.  An easy test is to write it in the opposite form (Jane is a reliable person vs. Jane is not a reliable person).  

Both sides should agree on the basic nature of the topic.  First things first: what is the core of disagreement? Disagreements can be over facts, judgments of what should be, and solutions to reach that goal.  Avoid squirreling , or playing around with the topic. Stick to one. 

2. Argument: How to make a point 

This chapter has an example of the author’s use of sources to make his points. A scene from Scent of a Woman (Al Pacino as a blind vet) is used as an example of a convincing argument. 

Steps of an Argument: (1) Determine conclusion (source of disagreement) (2) Add “because” – main claim/point to be proven (3) add “because” – reason/consideration in favor of claim (4) support reason with evidence (5) link main claim to conclusion with another reason to show the main claim is relevant.  An example:  

• Adam is not a nice person [conclusion]
• because he is inconsiderate of other people’s feelings [main claim]
• because he is often cruel to others [reason]
• At dinner, he made hurtful comments [evidence]
• The fact Adam is inconsiderate means he is not a nice person because, regardless of intent, he causes people a great deal of pain [link]

And, then there are the “4Ws”: what is the point, why is it true, when has it happened before, and who cares. The key to a successful competitive debate in his experience, no matter the level of competition, was the quality of the arguments. 

3. Rebuttal: How to push back 

Rebuttal is the art of taking down an opposing argument.   

An argument has two burdens of proof to meet: truth and proper supporting evidence.

Truth must be factually correct but also needs to be proven. If truth lacks evidence, it is of limited value to a debate.  Facts and evidence are varying levels of importance.  

Something that is not relevant to the conclusion is not helpful except perhaps to confuse things. A conclusion should follow from the evidence.  Any “logical leaps” should be minor at most.  

A counterclaim is a response to an argument that should provide a better answer, including answers that go beyond the specific arguments the other side makes.  

4. Rhetoric: How to move people 

Rhetoric is elements that go into the practice of persuasive speaking such as words, speech, gesture, and structure. 

You should use clear words, not abstract ones whose meanings are vague.  Sentences should be clear without unnecessary metaphors or qualifying words (“whereas”).  Paragraphs should start with your argument; don’t “bury the lede.”  Avoid unnecessary repetition.

Avoid emotional appeals and insinuations (“ dog whistles “). 

Explain why you believe what you believe (“reveal the journey”) and who is harmed or benefitted.  Find a good applause line that has a dramatic effect.  

5. Quiet: How to know when to disagree 

Bo Seo belonged to the tradition of “parliamentary debate,” which avoided performance art in favor of a more argument-focused approach (“real argument”).  This encouraged some care before deciding to engage in the argument, selecting arguments that will be productive.  

A basic rule of thumb would be the “RISA” test : 

• R eal: Actual differences – not mistaken, not just subjective opinion
• I mportant: Disagreement is justified  (difference in values, harm to people you care about not simple pride or defensiveness)
• S pecific: Narrow enough for each side to agree on the contours of topic
• A ligned: Arguing for the same reasons (get info, change minds, pass time, cause harm)

The basic questions are necessity or the need to debate a claim to resolve a dispute and progress , does contesting the claim get us closer to resolution?  Argument merely to cause harm and cause problems is unproductive.  But, it often is a major reason for arguments.  

Debate also should not just be an intellectual exercise. Bo Seo argues there are certain sensitive topics that are best avoided in professional debating.  Debating also should not attack the equal moral standing of people.  You can be a good debater as well as not a jerk.  

6.  Self-defense: How to defeat a bully 

The book now shifts into applying the lessons of competitive debating to everyday life.  

The Ancient Greeks described a style of argument that is aimed not at finding the truth, but victory over one’s opponent by any means necessary.  This promotion of strife, symbolized by the goddess Eris, was on display during the debates between Trump and Clinton in 2016.   

A system of good arguments must address the presence of bullies .  There are various kinds and each has a specific technique that can be used to address them.  

• Dodger : dodges question/pivot, ad hominem, tu quoque (you too).  Stay on course.
• Twister :  misrepresent/strawman (burden push).  Correct record.
• Wrangler : Only attacks; no good arguments; moves goalposts. Pin the person to a position.
• Liar : lies to mislead, bluster, and cause problems with the need to correct (liar spread).  “Plug and replace” – plug lies into a broader view of the world, and show problems with lies.  Replace the lie with truth, and explain why truth is better.  Refute key lies.  
• Brawler : Do not try to gain an unfair advantage; turn the argument into a free-for-all; the goal is to silence and dominate.  Restore debate and flag problem.

7. Education: How to raise citizens 

This chapter starts with a debating society of some renown.  It had long success, including many wins against college teams.  It recently started up once more.  A famous member eventually took the name “Malcolm X.”  The debate society grew up in Norfolk Prison.

Debate is an important part of education.  Education is an important part of being a citizen.  When the Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in education, it declared :

[Education] is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, preparing him for later professional training, and helping him to adjust normally to his environment. 

The skills necessary for good debate must be taught and put into use. The tools include research, teamwork, logical reasoning, composition, and public speaking.  

And, treatment of competitors as equals, who one day might be on your own team.  Not as enemies to destroy.  This was reinforced when Bo Seo became a debate coach himself.  

8. Relationships: How to fight and stay together 

Bo Seo discusses how same-sex marriage was debated in various places, including government and religious locations.  The debates often were left open; important to be respectful . 

Debates are often about trivial matters , and those often are the ones that are particularly vindicative.  This is especially when people we care about are involved. 

Trivial debates that are heated are often about bigger issues. For instance, a debate about dishes can really be about compatibility, relationship strength, and one’s status in the mind of others.  Such debates can be vague with each side arguing past the other.  

An important tool, which competitive debate furthers, is to “ side switch .”  This means that you are able to see the other side of the debate.  You are able to even switch sides.  

Competitive debate means being ready to argue either side of an issue.  You also have to be able to truly understand the other side’s arguments. This includes viewing your arguments from their point of view.  How might they counterargue your position?  You must have empathy .

9. Technology: How to debate in the future.

Bo Seo worked as a reporter and investigated Project Debater, an artificial intelligence system trained to engage humans in a live argument.  Its biggest skill was to marshall evidence, but the machine was less skillful at engaging with a human audience.  

The Internet is infamous for bad arguments.  There are some techniques that work better.  When arguing online, you first need to respond to arguments as fast as possible. The later you respond, the less you are likely to convince.  You should also be honest and provide evidence ( “show receipts ”), but there is a limit to the level of engagement until people tend to move on. 

The chapter also discusses various techniques used online to advance debate including Reddit forums and the digital minister of Taiwan . They each had to deal with the spread of disinformation and other barriers to good debate found online.  

[I found this chapter more of a struggle to get through and less free and easy to read.]  

Bo Seo received mixed reactions when he first showed a draft of his book to various friends.  Were good debates the appropriate thing to use to address the problems of the day?

He eventually arrived at an agenda to help improve the spirit and practice of debate in public life. First, debate should be encouraged, including setting up welcoming procedures and locations to have them.  Good debate thrives in carefully structured situations.  

Second, the government should provide the public with the education needed to participate.  Good debating is not merely something natural; it is something that is learned. Third, there should be public oversight to ensure that both things are being handled well.  

Fourth, the government should take advantage of and respect the outcomes of such public debates.  Bo Seo determined debate was not only useful for himself but has wide potential.  

Points to Ponder

Bo Seo has a chapter about how professional debaters take a specific position, which is the luck of the draw. You do not choose.  This time you might be arguing for the death penalty, next time you might be arguing against it.  The job of the debater is to put forth the best argument. 

He does not really address the concern (though flags a few people who don’t like this technique, wanting only to promote “the truth”) of supporting “the wrong side.”  

Did Bo Seo ever have to debate a side he personally found abhorrent akin to a vegan needing to support hunting or a pacifist supporting militarism?  How would someone handle that?

The value of a “devil’s advocate” is to make sure you understand positions that you personally might strongly oppose or maybe not consider at all.  For instance, judges sometimes make sure to have law clerks who ideologically oppose the views of the judge.  Provides helpful insights.  

Bo Seo is a two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Australian national debating team and Harvard College Debating Union.  Bo Seo has also been a reporter for Australian Financial Review .  He has written articles for various major publications.  

Seo graduated from Harvard University and has a public policy degree from Tsinghua University.   He currently is a student at Harvard Law School.  This is his first book.  

Is Good Arguments a Reliable Source?

Bo Seo is a champion debater and has been a coach to competitive debaters as well.  This book focuses on what the author knows best.  The reader is able to trust the source.

The book focuses on debate analysis techniques.  The author also provides various historical examples (Aristotle, Malcolm X, and so on) and other details.  

These are also reliably expressed, including with the addition of professional endnotes.  The author’s academic bona fides help here as well.  Bo Seo also provides some personal opinions throughout the book.  Again, as a whole, I found these to be sensible and reliable.  Good Arguments is a reliable source.

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Good Arguments

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“The rare book that has the potential to make you smarter—and everyone around you wiser.” —Adam Grant Two-time world champion debater and former coach of the Harvard debate team, Bo Seo tells the inspiring story of his life in competitive debating and reveals the timeless secrets of effective communication and persuasion When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he did not speak English, and, unsurprisingly, struggled at school. But, then, in fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. Immediately, he was hooked. It turned out, perhaps counterintuitively, that debating was the perfect activity for someone shy and unsure of himself. It became a way for Bo not only to find his voice, but to excel socially and academically. And he’s not the only one. Far from it: presidents, Supreme Court justices, and CEOs are all disproportionally debaters. This is hardly a coincidence. By tracing his own journey from immigrant kid to world champion, Seo shows how the skills of debating—information gathering, truth finding, lucidity, organization, and persuasion—are often the cornerstone of successful careers and happy lives. Drawing insights from its strategies, structure, and history, Seo teaches readers the skills of competitive debate, and in doing so shows how they can improve their communication with friends, family, and colleagues alike. He takes readers on a thrilling intellectual adventure into the eccentric and brilliant subculture of competitive debate, touching on everything from the radical politics of Malcom X to Artificial Intelligence. Seo proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, far from being a source of conflict, good-faith debate can enrich our daily lives. Indeed, these good arguments are essential to a flourishing democracy, and are more important than ever at time when bad faith is all around, and our democracy seems so imperiled.

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Kindle Book Release date: June 7, 2022

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The Books That Taught a Debate Champion How to Argue

Through reading, I learned that disagreement can be a source of good, not ill, even in our polarized age.

Less than a year after I read my first book in English, The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl, I joined my elementary school’s debate team. I was a fifth grader and a recent immigrant to Australia, and the two milestones were closely related. As the language and culture of my new home became legible to me, I began to desire more than comprehension. I wanted to talk back and, in turn, be heard.

I soon learned that reading served an urgent purpose in debate. Because the aim of the activity was to out-argue the other side, debaters had to stockpile information. My strategic Wikipedia searches grew, over time, into a homemade index of The Economist and reading lists of academic texts. The success that followed fixed the association in my mind: In debate, one read to win.

For 15 years, I debated. I won two world championships and coached the Australian and Harvard teams. In that time, I almost always carried a book, taking from it new ideas and inflections of voice, anything to give me an edge.

Nowadays, disagreement is out of fashion. It is seen as the root of our personal and political troubles. Debate, in making a sport out of argument, seems at once a trivial pursuit and a serious impediment to the kinds of conversation we want to cultivate. But in my first book, Good Arguments , I propose that the opposite is true. Students may train to win every disagreement, but they soon learn that this is impossible. Even the best lose most of the competitions they attend. What one can do is disagree better—be more convincing and tenacious, and argue in a manner that keeps others willing to come back for another round. In the end, the prize for all that training and effort is a good conversation.

Thinking back on reading in preparation for competitions, I don’t focus on individual titles; instead, I recall the small library they form in my brain. There, books jostle against one another for prominence. Some are strident takedowns of the others. The chattering is cacophonous, but the internal dissent enlarges the collection rather than reduces it. All of the books fit on the same shelf.

I believe that arguments can be a source of good, and not ill, in our polarized age . Here are the books that show me why—and how.

Thinking in an Emergency , by Elaine Scarry

Scarry, one of my English professors at Harvard, is the rare scholar who can change how you move through the world. She has made a career of bringing language to the ineffable ends of human experience: pain and beauty. In Thinking in an Emergency , she places deliberation at the core of a democratic response to emergencies including natural disasters and nuclear war. Scarry argues that debate, both real-time and prospective, need not hinder action and can instead secure the resolve and coordination needed for rapid response. She warns against leaders who invoke catastrophes to demand that their populations stop thinking. In this era of calamities, natural and man-made, Scarry’s wisdom is essential: “Whatever happens, keep talking.”

The Topeka School , by Ben Lerner

Every debater learns to spot what some refer to as “must-hit” arguments that, left unaddressed, can sink his or her case. The poet and novelist Ben Lerner’s treatment of the sport in this moody bildungsroman is a must-hit. Lerner, a former debate champion, portrays its participants as hostile, bullying, mendacious, glib, annoying, and practiced in a dark art. He turns the spread—a quirk of some American debate formats, where speakers speed through roughly 350 to 500 words a minute—into a potent symbol for speech intended to overwhelm, “disclosure … designed to conceal.” The book forms the centerpiece of the anti-debate canon, along with Sally Rooney’s wry 2015 reflection on the activity as “ritualized, abstract interpersonal aggression” in the Dublin Review . This canon is crucial, as it reminds us that the art derives its potency from mercurial elements—among them contest and performance—that must be carefully managed. As with any incisive critique, I found myself nodding along even as I prepared my rebuttal.

Tell I t to the World: An Indigenous Memoir , by Stan Grant

Grant, an Australian journalist, argues that progress lies in dialectic: One point of view clashes against another, giving rise to a third way that combines elements of both rather than defaulting to either one. In his memoir, Grant makes the point with grace, weaving in his personal history as an Indigenous man who also has European ancestors. His struggle for self-definition mirrors the journey of a nation to chart a course between the denial of history and the surrender to it. Grant’s voice is wounded and fatigued, but it carries the spirit of conversation: “I love more easily than I can forgive. So we must learn who we are, and see ourselves as if for the first time.” The original title in Australia, Talking to My Country , better captures that sense.

Read: The famous Baldwin-Buckley debate still matters today

The Autobiography of Malcolm X , by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

Malcolm X learned to debate as a 20-something in what was then called Norfolk Prison Colony, a state prison founded on reformist ideals that fielded debate teams against local colleges such as Boston University. In his memoir, X describes the experience of finding one’s voice and communing with an audience as a revelation: “I will tell you that, right there, in the prison, debating, speaking to a crowd, was as exhilarating to me as the discovery of knowledge through reading had been … once my feet got wet, I was gone on debating.” For most people, debate is a pastime of school and university years. This memoir shows that one can make a career and a life from its lessons in fierce, courageous, and resolute disagreement.

Crowds and Power , by Elias Canetti

This strange study from 1960 comprises field notes on the appearance, characteristics, and behaviors of crowds. It mines the psychology of such groups—“one of the striking traits of the inner life of a crowd is the feeling of being persecuted”—and documents their behaviors: “The crowd needs a direction. It is in movement and it moves towards a goal.” For Canetti, a Jewish intellectual displaced by the rise of Nazi Germany two decades prior to the text’s publication, the interest in crowds is more than aesthetic—it’s a survival tactic. Debate can negate groupthink by restoring the primacy of reason and fostering individual encounters between two people. For it to succeed, we have to understand the allure of crowds. I do not know a more vital resource for understanding “pack mentality” and its susceptibility to authoritarian rule.

Read: Five features of better arguments

A Small Place , by Jamaica Kincaid

When I read, as a freshman in college, Kincaid’s second-person address to a visitor to the island of Antigua—“you are on your holiday; you are a tourist”—I knew I had been transformed. This slim book on the legacies of colonialism has been described variously as a jeremiad and a mock travel guide. For me, it is a masterpiece of rhetoric—one that grips the audience’s attention through sheer craft. The author’s language is biblical in its depth and passion. She demands nothing less than the expansion of the public conversation to accommodate the language, experience, and thought of a population repressed through violence. The best debate speeches tend to do the same: They pronounce a truth and ask us, the listeners, to catch up.

When Should Law Forgive ? , by Martha Minow

One question I struggle with in Good Arguments is when we should stop debating. Minow, a former dean of Harvard Law School, provides here a model of humane consideration on the limits of the adversarial ethic. Hers is an argument for accommodating forgiveness—the “letting go of justified grievances”—in the legal system. She builds the book as one would a spacious house, each area of the law—juvenile justice, debt, amnesties and pardons—a separate chapter in which readers are invited to stay and reflect awhile. Martha Nussbaum is illuminating on related topics in her critique of anger in Anger and Forgiveness , which elicited rebuttal from Myisha Cherry in The Case for Rage , an argument for the emotion’s usefulness in conditions of resistance. The need to balance dispute and conciliation, accountability and grace, cannot be transcended, only better managed.

Think Again: The Power o f Knowing What You Don’t Know , by Adam Grant

I had originally intended my book to be a short manual written for competitive debaters, but reading Grant, the Wharton professor and author, changed my ambition. In his latest work, dedicated to the power of rethinking one’s beliefs to arrive closer to the truth, he analyzes the arguments between Harish Natarajan, a champion debater, and IBM’s artificial-intelligence system Project Debater. He draws from the matchup and from other professionals a series of lessons for arguing more persuasively in everyday situations. One piece of advice comes from Natarajan: Rebut the strongest, and not the weakest, version of an opposing argument; steel man, don’t straw man. The lessons—whether pressure-testing ideas or asking better questions—are taut and memorable, and demand that readers reconsider their priors.

Read: Changing your mind can make you less anxious

From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia , by Pankaj Mishra

Mishra tells a rich and erudite story that highlights the contributions of three intellectuals—Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Liang Qichao, and Rabindranath Tagore—to the rise of modern Asia. Each of them responded to the same basic challenge—Western imperialism—but their thinking refracted through the vagaries of personal temperament and circumstance. (The cosmopolitan Bengali poet, Tagore, also stars in Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian , a history of pluralism in Indian politics and culture that reads as an ode to its “long tradition of public arguments.”) In their resulting array of arguments, written and spoken, Mishra identifies the development of ideas that continue to shape the world, among them pan-Islamism and Chinese nationalism. Any given conflict lasts only a short while, but it can echo through the generations.

Checkout 19 , by Claire-Louise Bennett

For years, I have been on the lookout for a book that captures the moment when a person finds his or her voice for the first time. Bennett’s novel is that title. In it, a working-class girl explores the ever-shifting boundaries of her mind, often in conversation with what she’s reading. Her voice is incantatory, obsessive: “Just one book. Yes. And in fact as far as we were concerned nobody else had this book apart from us. Nobody. Nobody. Not a single soul,” she thinks. The narrator puts forward ideas, then revises them; each iterative step lays the path for new discoveries and disclosures. A person’s journey toward self-knowledge, and the ability to share that knowledge, is a common interest of authors and debaters. It enables the conversation to continue, enriched at each turn by the inclusion of another voice.

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17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

• A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book. 
• A book review will offer an evaluation of the work. 
• A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience. 

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

How much of a book nerd are you, really?

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Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

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It Ends with Us Review

Thanks to its killer filmmaking team and lead blake lively, this colleen hoover adaptation is actually… good.

Like it or not, Colleen Hoover has taken the publishing world by storm , and it was only a matter of time before one of her sweeping romances got the big-screen treatment. It stands to reason that her most (in)famous book, It Ends with Us, would be first in line. The filmmakers behind the project, led by director Justin Baldoni, had a lot to prove: Depending on what corner of the internet you’re on, the tale of smooth-talking redhead and aspiring florist Lily Bloom (played in the movie by Blake Lively) is either a beautiful tear-jerker or a clunky, abuse-glorifying work of cringe. But thanks to slick screenwriting, stylish art direction, and a sparkling lead performance from Lively, the film tackles difficult subject matter with maturity, tenderness, and just a dash of whimsy.

In the pages of Hoover’s book, it’s hard to understand what makes Lily so special and different , but on screen, Lively’s presence is undeniable. Decked out in Carhartt jumpsuits and chunky rings, the former Gossip Girl star and recent Lady Deadpool brings Lily to full-glam life without making her seem untouchable. And she works so well with Baldoni, who pulls double duty here as director and one of Lively’s love interests: the beguiling neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, whose violent, jealous nature causes Lily to flash back to her own troubled upbringing. Baldoni brings real, complex emotion to Ryle that elevates him from a mere sexy abuser or outright villain to a loveable, pitiable man. He and Lively give It Ends with Us an aura of cool that I wouldn’t associate with Hoover’s bibliography, which generally feels more at home in the Target discount section than it does on the red carpet.

What’s Blake Lively’s best on-screen role?

That these characters are relatable, rather than clunky caricatures, is no doubt thanks to Christy Hall (co-creator of I Am Not Okay with This ), whose screenplay perfectly walks the line between self-deprecation and fan service. When they meet, Lily and Ryle joke about how ridiculous their names are. At one point, Ryle asks, “When’s the last time you saw someone who looked like me who wasn’t on a daytime soap?” and when he meets Lily’s mother (played by Amy Morton), she has an appropriately over-the-top reaction. This is a movie where a woman named Lily Blossom Bloom opens a flower shop, falls in love with a physician who could be mistaken for a Greek god, and coincidentally hires the doctor’s sister (Jenny Slate) to help open her shop – all while her first love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), stumbles back into her life. But it’s a movie that knows it’s doing all of those things, and delights in them.

By changing its perspective from first- to third-person, Hall also sidesteps some of the novel’s more saccharine elements, leaving audiences to focus on the confusing, occasionally heart-wrenching facts at play in Lily’s life. The scenes set in the past are handled excellently – Alex Neustaedter (as young Atlas) and newcomer Isabela Ferrer (as young Lily) are particularly well-cast, with Ferrer mirroring Lively’s mannerisms so well it’s almost eerie.

It Ends with Us Gallery

Of course, this is an adaptation of a book that is, on its own, a bit ridiculous – a fact that can’t be camouflaged by all the solemn Ethel Cain songs on the soundtrack. Should Lily look to Atlas, who corrals her in a bathroom and physically fights Ryle, as a savior from her abuse-riddled life? Is it possible to sustain a small business with just one other employee when you’re constantly caught up in romantic drama? Is Boston really the best city in the world, as these characters constantly claim? Perhaps not. Still, It Ends with Us is a truly admirable translation from page to screen, one as likely to draw in new fans as it is to please die-hards. Go for the fashion, stay for the cast’s delightful chemistry – and if you cry easily, bring tissues.

It Ends with Us is an occasionally schlocky and saccharine novel, but Justin Baldoni’s film adaptation uses an ace script and stellar performances – particularly that of lead Blake Lively – to elevate Colleen Hoover’s story to its cinematic peak. That’s not to say that this film isn’t, like its source material, occasionally ridiculous. It is. But you’re more likely to laugh your way through the ridiculousness than you are to cringe at it, and you might even catch yourself tearing up.

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‘outsiders’ #10 points a gun at reality…but does it pull the trigger.

The last two issues of Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Robert Carey’s Outsiders has dealt with two different kinds of guns: Batwoman fighting a cursed gun that compelled whoever picked it up to carry out violence, and Batwing with a massive cannon that could destabilize reality. Outsiders #10 brings both of these weapons into play, as Jakita Wagner, better known to readers as the Drummer, intends to use their destructive power to resurrect her universe, which will wipe out every other world in the Multiverse. Can Batwoman and Batwing stop her in time?

Lanzing and Kelly have been using Outsiders to dig deep into the mechanics of storytelling in a shared universe, With this issue, they tackle the biggest question of all: what happens when a story ends? Endings in comics are rare, especially when it comes to shared universes, but the way Lanzing and Kelly write this comic makes it feel like the world is ending. They know how to build tension: most of the issue has Batwing and Batwoman racing to stop Jakita. They know how to keep readers hooked: the ending wasn’t what I expected, and it sets the stage for the final issue.

Seeing this series end will also mean an end to Robert Carey’s artwork, and that’s a shame because he has been delivering some stunning imagery. Outsiders #10 is arguably where he hits his peak, delivering work that literally breaks out of the page. There are moments featuring the Kaiju kid that show just how huge it is, while the ending features reality fracturing and breaking apart into pieces, fading to white courtesy of Valentina Taddeo. Carey also understands how powerful Jakita is; whenever she hits something, it’s like getting punched by a cruise missile: the ground explodes and a shockwave ripples out, which he draws with an almost loving detail.

Outsiders #10 serves as the beginning of the end of the story that its creative team has been telling for nearly a year, while also exploring what it means to “end” a story in a superhero universe. I’ll also say this: The end of the world never looked so good.

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Comic Books Reveal How the World Misunderstands Christianity

Review: ‘christianity and comics’ by blair davis.

C. S. Lewis never had the opportunity to share his thoughts on Marvel’s 1994 comic adaptation of The Screwtape Letters, but he did say much of the criticism of comics in his day was overblown. He wrote in a 1960 letter ,

I wonder do we blame T.V. and the Comics too much? . . . It annoys me when parents who read nothing but the newspapers themselves . . . complain of their children reading the Comics! Upon my soul I think the children’s diet is healthier than their parents’.

In Lewis’s mind, newspapers are more inclined to corrosive propaganda than comic books or other popular fiction. In An Experiment in Criticism , he rebuffed those who begin their artistic engagement from a skeptical standpoint. “The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender,” he writes. Surrender can’t coexist with skepticism. “You cannot be armed to the teeth and surrendered at the same moment.” There’s no indication Lewis personally enjoyed comic books, but he opposed snobbery that cut Christians off from pop culture.

We engage with popular cultural media, including comic books, because they help us escape our myopic vantage point. Comic books can help those who engage with them rightly to gain new insight into prevailing worldviews, preparing us to communicate with non-Christians.

Christianity and Comics: Stories We Tell About Heaven and Hell by scholar Blair Davis reminds readers of theology’s reach into the broader culture, for both good and ill. In this book, he explores how Christianity has been understood, and often misunderstood, by the surrounding culture.

Christianity and Comics: Stories We Tell about Heaven and Hell

Blair davis.

“Christianity and Comics” presents an 80-year history of the various ways that the comics industry has drawn from biblical source material. It explores how some publishers specifically targeted Christian audiences with titles like “ Catholic Comics ,” books featuring heroic versions of Oral Roberts and Billy Graham, and special religious-themed editions of Archie . But it also considers how popular mainstream comics like “ Daredevil,” “The Sandman ,” “ Ghost Rider ,” and “ Batman”  are infused with Christian themes and imagery.

Consider the Medium

Davis tracks how comic book artists, writers, and publishers engage with Christian themes. Most often, he describes the major comic book publishers like Marvel and DC using Christianity as a source of story inspiration. The X-Men confront the ancient Apocalypse and his four Horsemen. Faith imagery echoes through storylines like Daredevil’s “Born Again” and Batman’s “Holy Terror.” The quality of these representations of Christianity has varied, which has contributed to a largely binary approach to the medium among Christians.

When comic books emerged, some Christians capitalized on the medium for educational and evangelistic purposes. Others, however, organized events to destroy the material that “caused the downfall of many youthful readers,” according to a boy participating in a 1948 comic book burning (58). We see the tendency of Christians to either adopt culture unquestioningly or condemn it without serious consideration.

We see the tendency of Christians to either adopt culture unquestioningly or condemn it without serious consideration.

For example, advocates of using comic books evangelistically seemed to give little thought to the medium’s appropriateness for the task. Does the flimsy nature of a comic book convey the right tone when communicating an everlasting message? Can you recontextualize the written Word of God as illustrated pictures with conversation bubbles? As with the use of numerous technologies in churches today, there may be well-thought-out methodologies, but pragmatism often drives the discussion. Comic books that rely on Christian themes sometimes present shallow versions of Christianity, which often rely on theological misinterpretations.

Theological Misinterpretation

Christianity and Comics undermines the notion that the United States is no longer influenced by faith. Davis writes, “The influx of new titles using religion as the basis for their storytelling, whether they reinforce Christian beliefs or tear them down, are a sign of the continuing influence Christianity has on Western civilization” (251).

While it’s clear vestiges of the Christian faith still serve as starting points for many comic books, most aren’t reinforcing or tearing down; they’re misinterpreting.

While it’s clear vestiges of the Christian faith still serve as starting points for many comic books, most aren’t reinforcing or tearing down; they’re misinterpreting. That’s not a new phenomenon. From their earliest days, comics perpetuated poor theology.

Satan became a comic fixture in the 1950s but had been around since the beginning of the medium. “The devil could even be considered one of the first supervillains to appear regularly in comics throughout the 1940s, alongside Lex Luthor and the Joker,” Davis writes (23). But the supernatural adversary was often bested by decidedly natural means. One devilish scheme was thwarted “by a group of young children who beat Satan up with a barrage of stones, bottles, and tiny fists” (27).

That caricature may be far removed from the prowling lion “looking for anyone he can devour,” but those who oppose the Devil in comics are just as confused. In an early 1940s Pep Comics issue, Brother Sunbeam, a glowing monk riding a mule, confronts Satan. “Give up your evil plotting against man, for you are doomed to failure. Man is essentially good!” (22). In this telling, salvation is assured by man’s goodness, not by Christ’s sacrifice.

As the book progresses chronologically from the 1940s to the modern era, much of the comic engagement with faith takes a more biting edge, particularly with independent publications. Writers and artists explored their struggles and doubts through the characters on the page. Eventually, many characters and storylines become intentionally blasphemous.

Doctrinal Distortions

More recently, Preacher , published by DC and adapted into an AMC television show, depicts a warped view of God. Jesse Custer, a small-town minister, loses his faith but gains godlike power. In the final confrontation, God confesses he created the world because he was lonely. “Men had to choose to love me,” God says. “I was alone. I wanted to be loved” (225).

Preacher creator Garth Ennis says that as a young child, he was told that God loves us “and if we loved him back . . . and did right by him, then he would reward us” (224). Ennis learned of a God who gives rewards in exchange for love instead of the God who has eternally existed in perfect triune love and graciously extends that love to those created in his image.

Davis records other comic creators sharing how their exposure to “organized religion” influenced their characters and storylines. Some may have misunderstood what they heard as small children, but many were likely taught well-intentioned but bad theology.

Christianity and Comics is at its best when dealing with the comics part of the title. Davis admits his limitations, specifying his entry point is “as a comic scholar, not as someone trained in religious studies” (9). His theological insights are limited and left-leaning, but the book does allow the reader to see ways Christians have engaged poorly with comics and the consequences of sharing sloppy theology. We never know when the next DC or Marvel creator will be listening to our attempted explanations of God and his character. It could be their theological villain origin story.

Aaron Earls is senior writer at Lifeway Research. He, his wife, and their four kids live outside Nashville, Tennessee, where he serves as a deacon and small group teacher at their church. He blogs at Wardrobe Door .

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On Biden’s Exit, Pelosi Says She Was Driven by Need to Defeat Trump

A new book by the former speaker details her clashes with the former president, but it was written before her most recent exercise of political might: helping persuade President Biden to end his re-election bid.

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By Carl Hulse

Carl Hulse has covered Nancy Pelosi throughout her career on Capitol Hill.

To hear Representative Nancy Pelosi tell it, her quiet but firm push to get President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race was a simple matter of the ruthless political math that she has spent decades honing a talent for on Capitol Hill.

“My goal is defeat Donald Trump,” Ms. Pelosi, the former speaker, said in a recent interview before the release this week of a book on her years in Congress. “And when you make a decision to defeat somebody, you make every decision in favor of that. You don’t mess around with it, OK? What is in furtherance of reaching that goal? I thought we had to have a better campaign.”

To the former speaker, the imperative to end Mr. Trump’s political career far outweighed the need for any deference to Mr. Biden, particularly since Democrats were at grave risk of losing the House and Senate if the president remained on the ticket. She seemed willing to accept the consequences of anger from Mr. Biden and his inner circle considering what was at stake.

The book, titled “The Art of Power,” is Ms. Pelosi’s retelling of major moments of critical decision-making during the Iraq War, a catastrophic financial meltdown, the passage of the Affordable Care Act and multiple clashes with former President Donald J. Trump, among other events.

But it may be her most recent deft exercise of political finesse and muscle — one that took place well after the book was written — that will stand as a final testament to Ms. Pelosi’s stature as the Democratic Party’s premier powerhouse of recent decades. In a formidable display of her enduring clout, she helped persuade the incumbent president to abandon his re-election bid to give her party a better chance of holding the White House in November.

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