The list of characters is long and important, each one playing some significant role in the narrative's scope. Some of these issues follow Roberta throughout the entire book and others find a speedier resolution, but they all contribute to the furtherance of the plot as its dark net begins to tighten, as Roberta begins to find out how all of these ostensibly unconnected portions of her life really fit together in a giant puzzle to point her toward information about the unsolved murder of her mother seven years ago, and the stunning revelations about the people who were involved in it.Ĭrusader is marked with deeply running lines of noblest virtue and yellowest cowardice, often even coming from the same person. The massive density of the book allows for the resulting ripples of this heated conflict to be treated with uncommon depth, and for a large number of side characters and other issues to naturally blossom from the story as it goes along. Roberta gets caught up in the dispute between a young Arab-American mall vendor named Sam and a teenage worker who goes by the nickname Hawg, from her family's arcade. Roberta's life is heavily wrapped up in the dark, deadly secrets of her past, however, as well as in the deep secrets kept by her family and the people around them. The arcade's fare is exclusively comprised of virtual reality games, known as "experiences", and for five dollars a pop the customers can immerse themselves in these experiences that briefly transport their senses to another time and place. Roberta is a junior in high school, and she assists her father and her uncle's family in the operation of the virtual reality arcade that they own, in the languishing West End Mall. Crusader is very similar in the power and magnitude of its scope, taking its sweet time to close slowly in around the unwinding plot that is Roberta Ritter's life. His debut novel, Tangerine, blew by the expectations that I could ever have for any author's first effort, unfolding with the seeming skill of a story told by an author seasoned by decades of experience at inciting emotion and gripping his readers in the throes of excitement. Then you realize that you're only a quarter of the way through the book.Įdward Bloor is a master writer. For one thing, it's five hundred ninety-one pages long, and with the intense, dynamic writing style of the ingeniously endowed Edward Bloor, that length makes for a roller coaster ride of impossibly unpredictable twists and turns, red herrings and shocking secrets revealed at each step along the way, going and going until one might think that it just couldn't go anymore. NOTE: This product is no longer available.Crusader is not your typical young-adult book.
It was the slowest chopper we tested, and without the net added in, created a pretty rough chickpea mash rather than a smooth hummus. This is a good idea in theory but isn’t very effective in practice, especially with lighter-weight ingredients that aren’t inclined to fall through the net even when very finely chopped. It features a special purple “chop drop” net, which keeps ingredients in the top chamber until they’re small enough to fall through the net, at which point they drop into the bottom chamber.
The Philips Multi-Chopper ($35) was another plug-in top model, as opposed to the Cuisinarts, which plug in at the base. Overall, we found it just didn’t match up against the winning Cuisinart in terms of effectiveness and power and was twice the cost of our budget pick. What’s special about this model in particular is that it’s the only one with an opening in the lid to allow you to slowly stream in oil for emulsifying-common among full-size food processors but not among minis. The KitchenAid Mini Food Chopper ($50) has a handled prep bowl like the winning Cuisinart and a two-speed motor it chopped onions with ease and made a decent hummus.
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