Rating: 
Summary: I know better now
Review: I read this book in high school and was totally engrossed by it. I thought "This is it!, now I know the meaning to life!" But hey folks, I was a stupid teen trying to find out what I was here for. That's why it worked for me. Then I went to college and learned some real things and see that this book and it's "insights" (if they can even be called that) are a complete joke! I defended this book many a time on the net, but I wish I could go erase those things I wrote now because I was pathetically mistaken. The supporter's are entitled to their opinion, but my advice is this: please don't accept this so blindly. Look around you and see the real things that matter!
Rating: 
Summary: Message? What message? How about common sense!
Review: After reading this book, I now see the message. Unfortunatley, I purchased the book therefore the message has come a little too late. This lame excuse for writing is at least pathetic. This story seems to drone on and on, and let's not forget to point out the repeated phrases which seem to make up most of the text. Ugh! I feel cheated. Perhaps the lesson here is, don't judge a book by it's cover. I did. I lost. If you want a good book which lets you make up your mind, read "Holy blood, holy grail". Not this one.
Rating: 
Summary: it's not about the story
Review: This story was written as a pararble, a way to get ideas across to millions of people. It's not about the story being poorly written, but about getting the message of finding an inner peace with yourself and the world around you. If you are not ready for this book you will hate it, if you are it will make you at least think about the insights and find out if it has been true in your own life. I loved this book, and it's nice to know that maybe there is a rhymn and reason for why good and bad things happen to us.
Rating: 
Summary: Emotional reviews really the story
Review: There was a story and then there was input. It was for each reader to decipher. However, the reviews written concerning the emotions as hindsight really is the story. The question is, what did this book spark in the nature of human consciousness which rumbled so loudly? It renders itself truly as a divide within the core of thinking.
Rating:
Summary: a philosophical and literary wasteland
Review: I hesitate to take the trouble to address a book already so thoroughly reviewed, but I found the other reviews so entertaining, I decided to give it a try. First, I'd like to point out something I noticed. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the number with which the various reviewers rated the book and the reviewer's literary skill. That's a tactful way of saying that the more intelligent readers gave this book lower marks. Of course, this relationship did not hold true 100% of the time, but it is at least a glaring trend. My husband bought this book during a business trip and recommended I read it without sharing his opinion of it. Because a very good friend had previously strongly endorsed the book, I decided to take the time. I picked up the book with an open mind and every intention of suspending judgment. Before I was 50 pages into the book, I had the same feeling I had about 8 days into basic training in the Army: what have I gotten myself into? Because I would rather eat lemons than leave a book unfinished, I forced myself to wade through the rest of the book, which I found to be so poorly written as to be comical and so sophomoric as to be embarrassing. You'll notice I gave this book a 4 - barely below average - rather than a 1 or a 2. The sole redeeming feature of "The Celestine Prophecy" is that it's a conversation starter. My husband and I spent a few hours debating a few of the insights listed in the book; there's nothing there that hasn't been said before, but it's presented from a reasonably fresh angle. This book is ideal for pseudointellectual poseurs or teenagers (of any age) who are on a mission to "find themselves." If you're neither of the above, you probably shouldn't waste your money. Although "The Celestine Prophecy" makes a few interesting points, it is ridiculously badly written for a book that has achieved near-icon status. The author must have used the phrase "he/she/they looked at me intensely" about 80 times in a 200 page book. A writer he is not, but as philosophy, it is slightly less inadequate. It's a pretty immature work, and its popularity and the passion it inspires in its followers are a sad commentary on the philosophical bankruptcy of the modern American mind.
Rating:
Summary: Another how to reach enlightenment book for yuppies
Review: Ok fiction. But nothing new. This book is for people who are to lazy to read Plato, BF Skinner, the Torah,Koran,the Gitas, the New Testement and any other serious book on religion and/or philosophy. Take a bit of EST, add a pinch of Hinduim/Buddism/and what ever ism you like and you have this cute unoriginal concept for people with out original thoughts. The Tom Peters of pop culture.
Rating:
Summary: Winner Hands Down! Worst Book of the Decade!
Review: Now, from the same weirdos who brought you Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Don Juan comes this remarkably lifeless account of how one ought to achieve self-actualization. I suppose for those who need some kind of jump-start to their torpid, dull lives this book could perhaps get you out of the trailer park, but for those of us who long ago forswore the wonders of talk radio and talk TV and preferred instead to live our lives, this book is insanely inept and sinfully boring. It is badly written, with undeveloped characters who all speak serviceable English even in the depths of the Peruvian mountains. Characters are killed off indiscrimanately. Others are allowed to live on. There is no sense to the plot. And the plot is a clumsy, unsubtle vehicle for espousing a philosophy of living in peace and harmony on the planet. That's the nice thing: Lots of people will read this book and maybe waste their time trying to practice this go-nowhere philosophy. Meanwhile, I'll be hitching a ride on the grim (but real) capitalist bandwagon and moving toward a comfortable retirement. Let's face it, folks. We tried that peace-and-love route in the 60's. Then the hippies became yuppies, and we're worse off now than ever. The Celestine Prophecy's nine points will not put bread on your table when you're seventy. You can't even read this book for a good yuk. I only found one, and I had to supply the punch line from another source: When one of the points suggested seeing the aura of living things in the dim twilight, I was reminded of Gilbert and Sullivan's quote of a crusty old judge trying to make his elderly ugly daughter seem great marriage material: "She may very well pass for forty-three in the dusk with the light behind her." Put this book in the dusk with the light behind it. I guarantee you: NO AURA. Reason? Dead book.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING!!!!
Review: This is the most inspiring, amazing book that I have ever read. The key to this book is reading it with an open mind and an open heart. This book has definitely changed my life. If I have never read this book then i would definitely consider it a loss. I hope that this book touches everyone who reads it the way that it has touched my mind, heart and soul.
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment.
Review: I don't know what I expected but I know what I got. Characters with no character, a weak story line and poor writing. It also annoys me that here is yet another person who thinks he has THE ANSWER. Needless to say, I did not finish it.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Inspiring Book - If the Reader is Ready
Review: The real difficulty is not in understanding the popularity this book has achieved. This simply-presented book speaks of the desirability of love, self-understanding, compassion, spiritual evolution, and a multitude of other worthwhile and mature ideals. That so many are interested in these things enough to purchase the book is good. Upon reading all of the previous reviews, the difficulty I perceive is in the intractible cynicism of those who most strongly lambast the book. Alas, there is an unmistakeable lack of profound meaning and joy in most of their caustic writings, only the frantic agitation of spiritual atrophy hiding behind aggressive quasi-logic. Cynicism is the spiritual rot of the modern age. Redfield's book presents a delightful vision of hope. Perhaps the many negative reviews in these reactionarily negative times speak highly of his message, and thus serve to reinforce it. The best books of hundreds I've read in all areas of knowledge nearly always are given many 1's on this site's reviews. Nowdays I read the review for subtle signs of wisdom and maturity from the reviewer as an indicator of whom to be guided by. By nature, the crude seldom understand the fine, only the crude. This book did put more happiness into my life, and helped me to improve myself in several significant ways. I would recommend it to those who really feel a sense of profound awe while walking in the forest. It may be of less benefit to those who haven't yet reached a point of finding some deeper peace in their souls to begin with. (We see the release of frustration by those individuals in their reviews. The need to steal energy from others, perhaps, as the book talks about?) On the other hand, we see many glimmerings of peacefulness in the words of those who most strongly praised the book. That is good. "Ye shall know them by the fruits they bear", as another mixed-review book I read on one occasion said.
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