IQ by Joe Ide
Published 2016 · 400 pages · 80,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Mystery & Crime
How hard is IQ to read?
IQ scores 33 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 35 out of 100
- Conversational prose with hip-hop culture references and East Long Beach slang alongside clear narration.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Abstraction: 25 out of 100
- Concrete storytelling focused on character, community, and investigation. Social commentary through specifics.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Moderate density with investigation details, neighborhood culture, and backstory interwoven.
- Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
- Past-present alternation creates some indirection, but both timelines are clearly signposted.
- Symbolic density: 25 out of 100
- Isaiah's intelligence and his setting carry thematic weight, but Ide works through character and plot.
- Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
- Humor and social observation provide some distance, but the emotional core is sincere.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- The investigation builds to a satisfying climax. The backstory revelation carries emotional weight.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Alternating past-present timelines. Simple but effective structure.
How IQ is regarded
IQ holds a literary regard score of 39 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.