Avery

I'm rating this a 5 with a caveat -- I wasn't a fan of the YA-ness of all the characters being teens at school. The thing is, the stuff they were learning was too cool.

The way that the exercises and concepts are described is so perfect -- just enough detail to feel real and part of a huge coherent system.

Also all this talk of cured meats and pickles and heavy breads kept making me hungry.

Pretty entertaining as usual. Also as usual – a confusing amount of repetition of the same exposition throughout the book? Explaining who Angleton is, what the deal with the violin is, what's K-Syndrome etc.
I guess I can understand wanting to make the books readable out of order (though it's not my favourite), but it seems like these things are repeated a lot even within a single book. Reduces the enjoyment a bit to feel like you want to fast-forward through a section.