Rating: 
Summary: 9 hours
Review: i read this book in 9 hours. I sat down and I read it. it's beautiful and wonderful and the characters are so alive you can't help but sob and laugh with them.all those who look at this book as disgusting, it's intended, irving is showing another side of human nature. he is being honest. all those who say it is boring,... obviously aren't reading the same book I did. garp is anything but boring
Rating:
Summary: Truly bizarre!
Review: I don't know how John Irving did it - he created an improbably weird cast of characters, that have stranger adventures than you would ever imagine, and somehow made it all totally believable. Although Garp is the title character, many of the other characters are developed just as well, most notably his mother, Jenny Fields (who I found to be even more intersting than Garp himself). And what other author would even think to make a major character out of a transsexual ex-football player (who, by the way, is played in the movie by an absolutely hilarious John Lithgow)? "The World According to Garp" will alternately make you laugh and cry. It's a roller-coaster ride that is impossible to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable...
Review: This book was good, however, Irving has written better things. I started this book with really high expectations having LOVED 'A Prayer For Owen Meany'and been told this was better. I have to disagree. It is definately entertaining but never approaches the heights of bittersweet comedy that Irving reached in 'A Prayer For Owen Meany'. I would recommend reading this book definately, but make some time in you schedule to read Owen Meany as well.
Rating:
Summary: freaky
Review: I loved this book. I was very disappointed, as A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR was the first Irving book I had read-- I thought that book was pointless drivel, so I don't know what made me pick up another Irving. I'm glad I did though. It could've been the way everyone compared many great books to GARP. Well, this book lived up to the raves, for once. Truly spectacular, and absolutely original. The characters were hilarious, complex, loveable and unlikable all at once sometimes. I recommend this book to everyone. It has somewhat of a slow start, but it's worth the effort to get through the first few chapters. Jenny Fields is one of the best written characters out there; she was my favorite!
Rating:
Summary: Surreal end Extraordinary
Review: A warning to readers of "A Prayer for Owen Meany": Throw out your expectations of John Irving. APFOW was a spectacular book, but very different from this one. A warning to more sensitive readers: Just because an author depicts disgusting or un-Christian behavior does not make him an advocate of it. Authors are both observers and commentators. Read the commentary as much as the events. That said, I have to comment myself that this is one of the finest books I have ever read. I believe that John Irving is one of the writers of the twentieth century who will be remembered long into the next one. His characters are bizzare to say the least, but he makes them real to us and never trivializes any of them. Irving has a wonderful sense of the comically tragic, as well as a unique perception of human fallibility. In the novel according to Irving, we are all terminal cases.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: This has got to be, by far, the best book I've ever read. I was 17 the 1st time I read it. I found it laying around my parents house and, out of boredom, picked it up and started reading. Up to that point, I had never been one to like reading. "I'll wait for the movie" was my motto. I got the suprise of my life. It was the 1st book that ever made me laugh out loud and it was the 1st book that ever made me cry. John Irving certainly has a knack for conveying all emotions. I've been a book lover ever since, and yes...I have read all of John Irving's books.
Rating: 
Summary: A TOTAL WASTE again
Review: What a sick waste of time. Pointless. The only book JIrving wrote that's worth a read is_______ A Prayer for Owen Meany. The rest are brain dead ramblings of garbage.
Rating:
Summary: I keep this book close at hand...
Review: I have read this book at least ten times. Every time I read it I like it more. It is weird and excellent, and if Irving never wrote another word besides GARP he should still be considered one of the most important writers of our time.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Finest Books Ever Written
Review: John Irving's "Garp" is an insightful, spellbinding, heartbreaking, and beautiful book... the labyrinthine structure is a bit tedious at first (Irving provides a five-seven page backstory for each of his tertiary characters!) but the work balances surrealism and contemporaneity more effectively than almost any other novel. I notice that many Amazon reviews have blasted the book's graphic sexual depictions: yes, it is graphic, and a thin layer of nihilistic blasphemy underscores the plot, yet Irving remains inoffensive and truthful. Also: "Garp" is one of the best novels to read if you would like to attain a passionate desire for fatherhood and/or marriage. Thoroughly engaging and highly, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but way out of my league
Review: Im 16 years old and was assigned this book for English in school. I am a strong christian with strong moral values and standards. This book was very offensive to me in that it had many sick descriptive sexual scenes and acts of adultery, murder, and disrespect toward religious values and God. I would not recommend this book to anyone, and it makes me sick to think that the world has accepted this book so happily, when i think it is an insult to evrything i believe..its disgusting.
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