Open by Andre Agassi

Published 2009 · 502 pages · 100,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Arts & Culture, Memoir & Autobiography, Nonfiction

How hard is Open to read?

Open scores 20 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. 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: 25 out of 100
Tennis terminology and everyday vocabulary. Very accessible.
Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
Abstraction: 22 out of 100
Concrete memoir. Psychological insight embedded in narrative.
Information density: 40 out of 100
Dense with personal detail and match descriptions.
Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
Mostly chronological with some temporal shifts.
Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
Tennis as metaphor for fatherly control and individual struggle.
Ironic distance: 18 out of 100
Self-aware, often wryly self-deprecating.
Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
Redemption arc provides closure.
Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
Chronological with reflective interludes.

How Open is regarded

Open holds a literary regard score of 43 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.

About the author

Andre Agassi