SuperFreakonomics by Dubner and Levitt

I really loved Freakonmics.  It was a highlight of the depressing Summer of 2009, when not much was happy in my life.  It was sandwiched somewhere between my readings of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, Outliers and Blink.  I ruminated on beautiful tidbits about naming children and Roe v. Wade’s influence on crime rates 15 years after its passage.  I was so into microeconomics.

SuperFreakonomics did not have the same effect on me.  I found myself bored in many sections and my Kindle’s next page buttons got quite the work out during the chapter, “What do Al Gore & Mt. Pintabo have in common?”  I liked the genial writing style; it reminds me of taking a class with your favorite professor.  Intellectual, but fun and funny.  Beyond that, SuperFreakonomics lacked the interesting stories and ideas that kept me engrossed in Freakonomics.  I wanted to love it, but I didn’t (and I ended up wishing I had bought What the Dog Saw by Gladwell, instead).

In a rating system based on Elijah Wood films, I would rate this book as All I Want: I enjoyed it in the beginning, remembering previous endeavors, but about half way through, the enjoyment was long gone and I just wanted it to be over.