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pgadow's review
challenging
informative
tense
slow-paced
4.5
Very informative albeit short book on mentalism and delivery, highly recommended!
alicihonest's review
2.0
It's astonishing to me that people are willing to pay extortionate amounts of money to access a copy of this book because it's out of print and he's popular. I consider myself a fan of Derren, but I'm glad I didn't find out about him until 2012- he seems like less of a pretentious little shit now than he apparently was when writing this book. It wavers between describing theory and practice, and is much more accomplished at the former. The 'practical' bits are not presented in a manner conducive to learning. Even though the theory was better presented, the tone affected in these passages is quite distasteful from time to time. Books on magic are hit and miss, and this is hardly the worst of the lot, but unfortunately due to Derren's success now, Pure Effect was built up to unattainable heights. Or rather, I just kinda thought it would be decent and it wasn't.
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