Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz

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Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz

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Buy Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Category: Entertainment
Rating: 4/5
Reviewer: Zoe Morris
Reviewed by Zoe Morris
Summary: An extremely thorough summary of Breaking Bad that fans will love to dip in and out of.
Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
Pages: 484 Date: May 2014
Publisher: Myrmidon Books Ltd
ISBN: 978-1905802968

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Cancer. Chemistry. Drugs. The DEA. Heisenberg. Mexico. Fried Chicken. Blood baths (and baths full of blood). Cartels. Criminal lawyers. Bacon birthday breakfasts. This is Breaking Bad, and the only question that remains is… Wanna Cook?

This year we binge-watched all five seasons of Breaking Bad from start to finish (thank you Netflix). It was a show I’d heard of, but never seen, and I quickly got hooked on the danger, the drama, and the downtrodden dudes who were the quote unquote heroes of the show. This book, subtitled the complete unofficial companion to Breaking Bad, is just that, a bumper book of facts and analysis on the hit show.

I like to know more about what I’m watching. Way back when, it was in the form of books like this, but then then internet, from IMDB to Wikipedia, took over, so I’ve not had a TV tie-in book in my hands for a while. I’ve garnered a lot of additional info about Breaking Bad since I started watching, so the challenge was for this book to tell me something I didn’t know about the series. And it did.

Taking each season at a time, this book provides an episode by episode breakdown complete with detailed synopsis, quotes, facts and trivia. With a healthy number of pages per episode the level of detail is intense and explains the chunkiness of the book, covering as it does every one of the 63 episodes. In addition to the blow by blow accounts and interpretation, there are also bonus features like body counts (who’s killed and by whom) per season and themed entries such as the cars of the show. Segments such as Lawyers and Advertising are especially useful for foreign viewers who are perhaps less used to seeing adverts for legal services on park benches.

If I were to change anything about this book, I would try to make it not quite so densely packed with info. I would like a little colour, a few pictures. It’s quite a dry read at times, and the analysis is more intellectual, or pseudo-intellectual, than you might expect. I found lots of interesting facts in it, but at times I had to search for them among some less interesting monologues. Through trial and error, I realised it was better to look up one episode at a time, if there was something I was watching or simply curious about going back to. This worked well because I had a satisfying amount of information to digest without getting too full, stuffed with too much knowledge.

As a flip in and out of book, then, I’d recommend this for fans. It’s not a book you should read if you don’t know the show, but it’s not aimed at such people. You really need to have got properly into it on TV first, and then come here for a bit more behind the scenes stuff, or directions to things you may have missed. For that it's perfect, and though it may include some things you don't really feel that bothered about, it's also full of a wealth of info you'll wonder how you ever coped without knowing.

Thanks go to the publishers for supplying this book.

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Buy Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
Buy Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad by Ensley F Guffey and K Dale Koontz at Amazon.com.

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