Customer Comments

This is the first time my daughter (age 10) recommended a book to me, and we both loved it. It is a book about adolescence and all of the good that can somehow come out of those "ugly-duckling" years. It is told from the point of view of several characters, all of which you will grow to love as you begin to understand their unique obstacles, trials, and victories.

Finally a character as gripping as Holden Caufield. I love Owen Meany and almost everything he stands for. Irving does such a good job of making the reader believe in an unrealistic character a step and a time. Here a little, there a little, until I bought into everything. One of few books I plan to re-read at some point.

This book was recommended to me (read: required reading) during residency by a plastic surgeon prior to starting his rotation. I found that its principles were applicable to the development of any skill, trait, or attribute. Simply put, this book teaches the reader to allow themselves to make mistakes and then learn (and grow) from them. After reading this, I found that I had a lot more patience with myself. (And even Guns n Roses knew that "you and I just need a little patience!") I can't recommend it enough. P.S. This is coming from a guy who usually reads fiction and thought I would hate a "self-help" book.

A wonderful example of a contemporary immigration story. Earlier eras had books like "The Jungle" that chronicled an immigration experience. This book captures the experience of a Sudanese refugee. It is a great story with a strong dose of reality both of the conflicts that would drive someone out of their own country and the problems encountered upon living in a new, foreign land. Books like "A Long Way Gone" also recreate this experience (of a separate group of African refugees), like the violence that is escaped, and the struggles that ensue. I am sure that Achak Deng's experience cannot be generalized to an entire population, as no single person's experence could represent such a diverse population. However, it did allow me a glimpse of a life and struggles so very different from my own. It gave me an appreciation of why someone would choose to live in the US in poverty rather than stay in their own war-torn country.

Dont read this because it was an Oprah Book Club selection (or not read it because it was an Oprah Book Club selection); read it because it is Steinbeck at his greatest, with short perfectly phrased sentences that create dynamic characters and scenes. But it delivers more than scenes from the Dust Bowl era, it allows the reader to feel the struggles of these characters. If you like a well written book by authors who write with the spare, tight sentences like Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway, then do yourself a favor and read this book.

Dont read this because it was an Oprah Book Club selection (or not read it because it was an Oprah Book Club selection); read it because it is Steinbeck at his greatest, with short perfectly phrased sentences that create dynamic characters and scenes. But it delivers more than scenes from the Great Depression era, it allows the reader to feel the struggles of these characters. If you like a well written book by authors who write with the spare, tight sentences like Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway, then do yourself a favor and read this book.

I read it with my kids ages 9 (girl) and 6 (boy), and all three of us loved it. Far from a "Narnia" rip-off, Meloy develops a wooded microcosm where animals and humans (and even some plants) interact as equals, and it works. Amazingly, it is not just the main characters (Prue and Curtis) that exhibit depth and character development, even minor characters possessed qualities that caused us to have a genuine interest in their outcome. A great read, and a good opportunity for kids to tackle what my kids have deemed a "big-thick-chapter-book."