Extremely thought provoking and detailed. I started reading this book many years ago and have picked away at it since. John Granger is a really lovely person and I love his fearlessness in applying academic and worldly concepts to stories he enjoys. As a young person who grew up with Harry Potter, this book became my primer on literary alchemy, post-modernism and cultural criticism. It's very wordy and it would seem like rambling to people who aren't deeply interested in literature, but if you are, I feel like this is definitely worth picking up. There's something about reading an academic's thoughts about a contemporary story you love that really opens one's mind. I would really give it 3.5 stars, almost four but it could use a little editing. I look forward to reading his Deathly Hallows Lectures and I feel like his writing may have tightened up a lot.