Rating: 
Summary: Not recommended
Review: The book started out with a promising set up, one that wasn't too hard for the author to set up because it is based on a real event which occurred in Peru in 1997. The book deteriorated from there. Negatives: Midway through it was so boring I had to force myself to finish it. Way too many details about characters' backgrounds didn't help me care about them much. The opera sections were so boring and implausible that I had to resort to skimming them by the end of the book. Positives: The book did make me wonder what happened to the real people involved in the true life events. The better story probably would have focused more on what leads young, innnocent teenagers to hook up with people like the generals to commit terrorist acts. The love story element actually was well written and somewhat interesting, but it just could not redeem the rest of the book. Ultimately, I can't recommend this book to any of my friends because they would probably think I subjected them to their own hostage situation (i.e., hostage to this tedious book!)
Rating:
Summary: Well, I Didn't Like It
Review: The theme around which BEL CANTO is centered...the taking of hostages by a terrorist group...can no doubt strike a chord with many readers, but, as far as I'm concerned, Patchett simply didn't pull off the story at all well.
Don't get me wrong; there is some lovely, straightforward writing in this book and one or two of the characters are delightful creations but all in all, I found the book not at all credible and not very involving.
BEL CANTO centers around a terrorist takeover of the Japanese Embassy in an "unnamed South American" country. This "unnamed country," however, can only be Peru. Patchett describes the garua that envelopes Lima, and only Lima, every winter, and she has obviously based her story on events that took place in that city in the late 1990s. The idea, I think, is a very good one, but the execution of that idea left a lot to be desired...at least for me.
I had the most trouble with the character of Gen, the translator. His actions simply didn't seem to be credible. They didn't fit his personality at all. Gen was an intellectual...he was a man of thought rather than raw emotion. I just couldn't buy Gen's love affair with Carmen. Even if raw emotion would overtake this rather charming but effiminate man, Carmen seems like the very last person he would choose. And, as another reviewer has already pointed out, it was also a stretch to believe that Gen could be so fluent in so many diverse languages. Had all the languages been Romance languages or Germanic languages, etc., I might have found him more credible, but Gen seemed to be able to speak any language at the drop of a vowel.
I think Patchett spent far too much time with the characters of both Gen and Carmen, and she did so at the expense of her other, more credible characters...the opera singer, Roxanne Coss and Mr. Hosokowa, the Japanese businessman whose birthday this diverse group had come to celebrate.
I did find the characters of both Roxanne Coss and Mr. Hosokowa both believable and engaging but Patchett, strangely, left them, and their relationship, far less developed than the relationship between Gen and Carmen, which to me, was a mistake and a pity, since they were far, far more interesting.
I also had touble believing in some of the terrorists. They were unusual, to be sure, but all in all, they were far too "soft" to have any credibility at all. And, Stockholm Syndrome notwithstanding, I still couldn't buy into the fact that hostages would identify with their kidnappers to the extent these hostages did.
Also, despite the presence of the Swiss negotiator, Joachim Messner, I couldn't believe the "outside world" would be as totally indifferent to the plight of the hostages inside the embassy.
Although this book has been hailed as containing "magical realism," I couldn't find any magical realism in it, not even magical realism with a very light touch. Although I liked the idea of music bringing this disparate band of terrorists and hostages together, parts of the book just seemed too silly to me.
And what about that epilogue? Even had I bought into the story of the terrorist takeover, which I didn't, the strange and totally "out of the blue" epilogue would have ruined the book for me. As it was, by that time, I simply didn't care.I give it two stars for lovely writing, but that's it.
Rating:
Summary: Eh......
Review: Someone I know raved about this book, so I opened the covers expecting an captivating story, and it was, for maybe the first 10 pages. But the more I read, the less interested I got in finishing the book. Slow pacing, uninteresting characters (for example, there's an opera singer that all the men fall in love with -- why? no clue. Roxanne Coss is a cipher of a character.) So I read about 90 pages, skipped ahead to the epilogue, then went back and read a paragraph or two every 40 pages or so until the end. That told me all I needed to know about the story. As engaging as People magazine and deserving of about as much of my reading time. Just not my cup o' tea.
Rating: 
Summary: A Lyrical Novel Set In a Hostage Situation
Review: This novel based on the Peruvian hostage situation during the time Peru had a president of Japanese descent is written lyrically. Towards the middle of the book, I got tired of reading it, as the hostage situation was so drawn out. They were hostages for months. Well, that's how it must have felt for the hostages. It improved as romantic situations developed between the hostages and the terrorists, and between the hostages themselves. The characters were mostly fully developed. One small criticism...I would have ended the tale some 10 pages before the ending, during the predictable ending of the hostage situation. The author's ending was a total surprise and the author didn't explain it, so it is incomprehensible to me. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Credible!
Review: There was an opera singer who enchants a rag-tag collection of terrorists and captives, the stereotypyped Japanese linguist who speaks just about every language he has ever heard of, with Japanese efficiency, native peoples (practically children) with a purity and innocence of purpose that has a comic-book quality to it. After a few pages, it was predictable and boring. The ending was too pat, and not at all credible. Too bad. It was a major news story a number of years ago in Peru, and something more should have been done with it. The book seemed to serve no real purpose, illuminating the reasons neither of the captors nor of the captives.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my goodness, what a beauty
Review: I have a few friends who just really didn't like this book, esp the ending. But everyone else I know agrees with me: it's a breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly inevitable novel. The internal theme of music in all its depth and richness runs like a treacherous melody through this dramatic story of a ton of people held hostage by a very young, very twitchy, and very idealistic bunch of rebel terrorists in some unnamed poor South American country. One is a famous American soprano, Roxane Coss; eventually she is the only remaining female hostage, and she is the point of communication between the hostages, who speak many different languages but share a love of opera.
The situation turns into a very very long siege, and as happens in these cases, odd bonds develop between terrorists and their captives, and soon the situation comes to feel 'normal' to those on the inside. Not so, however, out in the real world, and an inevitable rescue attempt occurs, with astonishing consequences.
My advice: Don't miss this lovely book.
Rating:
Summary: Fluff
Review: Ms. Patchett's book is an easy read. Her writing style is at times beautiful. Therefore, if you are looking for a bit of fluff reading, complete with action and romance, you are unlikely to be disappointed. However, if you want characters to be well-developed and to behave believably or if you want to be intellectually challenged, you should probably look elsewhere. This is not a terrible book, but, because I, based on the high praise, was looking for the latter above, I fount it to be terribly disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: A wonderful and lyrical love story. One of my all time favorite pleasure reads.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book
Review: From the reviews, I expected to adore Bel Canto. I think the characters were interestingly painted and good in concept. I also thought the premise to be interesting and well conceived. To live up to my full expectations I would have preferred more intimate details of the character motivations. I did not feel I fully knew them.
Rating:
Summary: What was the hype about????
Review: I ran across this book at a book sale and bought it because I remembered seeing it on the best sellor list a year or so ago. My expectations were high because it had apparently sold so well. I see that other reviewers praise it highly. Frankly, the story just didn't work. There are some good scenes and some interesting character development, but this is one that I'm really not recommending to friends. Maybe its me, but Bel Canto just didn't ring my bell.
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