I enjoyed the book so much that I signed up to received regular emails illustrating "figures" of speech, as they are used popular media. Jay Heinrichs presents the fundamentals of rhetorics in an unpretentious and transparent manner. A lot of information is presented, and I have come to regret, like Heinrichs, that rhetoric is not taught in schools. I would have benefited from having learned these concepts in grade school. Having been persuaded the power of these techniques, I did get a little bored with the ending, where he makes a case that a rhetorically-trained society would be a more democratic one. While I enjoyed the book tremendously, I didn't give it a "5" because I felt the production of the book was poor. I had to send back my first one because it was defective (missing 30 pages), and the layout of the pages looks like it was done by a high-schooler. Also, I thought the conclusion a bit anticlimactic.