It's probably the weakest RoL book, I mean, definitely is in my opinion. But yes even then it still has some really good moments.
To be fair, even many American politicians and officials seem to be unclear on who the FBI is and what they actually do.
That is becoming increasingly clear yes - that's not really my objection though, I just find her a tiresome and one-note character who is perilously close to "Well ahm just a small-town country
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have “bad taste” in fiction and other media. I’ll take a stack of entertaining schlock over the so-called classics any day. The stuff that tries to be fun and entertaining most often is, whereas the stuff that tries to be profound most often bores me to tears.
I have a noted tendency to completely fail to enjoy "literary" fiction, especially of the award-winning kind. A) Genre awards don't really count and B) there are some notable exceptions--typically those where they don't lose track of the fact they're telling a story.
I like a lot of literary fiction, but what I was really put off by was the 1960s (perhaps even earlier) through 2000s weird quasi-genre of "middle aged" (which can in practice mean barely over 30) well-educated (often VERY well-educated) white (usually male) character (or characters) obsesses about how "awful"* their life is and has affairs and so on and we're supposed to sympathize with them and find this all terribly compelling, and not think they're a rotten stinker with every advantage who should be ashamed of themselves. I don't get why this sort of thing did so well in literary circles. There's still stuff which isn't a million miles from that (just usually with a female tosser instead of a male one now).
I suspect it's reflective* of what life is like for a certain class of folks in Manhattan publishing circles, who are the gatekeepers for those literary imprints.
These days I'm reading something like twenty novels a month, mostly from local libraries. Sometimes I'll grab something that's dreck, and sometimes that will be a novel with literary pretensions. My little notes to/for myself about those books are often ... unkind.
I'm a voracious reader. I've read tons of classics. I am secure in whatever literary knowledge pretensions I have. I can let myself kick back and enjoy something "lowbrow." I'm happy talking about Crime and Punishment or The Eye of Argon.
Getting several degrees in literature and related topics made me absolutely hate just about anything described as literary. Gimme something with a plot any day.
That still bothers me. The whole of the sci-fi fantasy community coming together to mercilessly bully a kid over a book he wrote at 16. Utterly unforgivable.
