SuperSummary: Book Summaries

Several times I have started a behemoth of a book and paused partway through- only to unpause over a year later without realizing how time had flown. In those cases, SuperSummary had been tremendous! It saves me many hours that I would (maybe) spend re-reading but also allows me to finish books I would otherwise just DNF! Even if you enjoyed a book, it’s a tough pill to swallow to spend hours just refreshing your memory.

I found this after deciding to read Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. I needed help since I have processing and comprehension issues, especially reading old language like this. The app has been helpful, but something that grinds my gears is when I exit the app, then when I return, it has exited out of where I was when I left the app. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, whether in this app or other apps. If I wanted to leave where I am currently, I would leave. The chapter summaries have been helpful, especially clarifying things that are confusing with the old language and some dialects of some peripheral characters, but which are germane to the story. Also, an integrated dictionary would be helpful so one does not have to switch between this app and another one. Minor things. I still recommend the app as it’s got more things going for it than not.

I spent about 10 mins in this website before it was obvious the questions are heavily loaded. The way the generated questions are asked removed the possibility of kids thinking for themselves by already embedding moral undertones. For example, in Amos Fortune Free Man, instead of recognizing the time period in which the book was written AND the main character’s own viewpoint, the questions not-so-subtly accuse the author of racism and sexism. However wrong slavery was and is (and it is), it can’t be denied that Amos Fortune’s experience was not 100% terrible, and in fact HE saw it as the hand of God in writing his own story. He maintained the outlook that there was a hand of providence over all of his life, and that is overlooked by the way some of the summaries and questions are posed.