Rating: 
Summary: Makes you feel "starspattered"
Review: Before I read the above reviews I knew luminous was a key descriptive word. I was afraid that the book would read choppily because of all the characters' points of view but the uniting force in this novel is radiant love. We never even see the writer, Charles Baxter, who several times walks past a mirror that no longer refelcts. He is the medium that channels these wonderful people. There is parental love, erotic love, love of knowledge and divine love. All of it shines as brightly as the painting described in the book (and later seen at the wedding). It is a Midsummer's Night Dream told by an insomniac who feels "emptied out" by the end of the book. It has the abililty of expressing profound truths in simple ways. "I had smashed my life with a hammer" one character states, but later through redemptive love he also is able to say "Whatever I was that was apparently what she wanted." It is a celebration of love and being human. I loved this book.
Rating: 
Summary: NO POINT
Review: I don't consider myself a prude and I enjoy explicit and arousing writing about love making in novels, but I was surprised that none of the other reviews made mention of the unnecessary over emphasis on sex in the novel. The book failed me and left me feeling tricked mainly because it started off so good and the title seemed so promising. While everyone may have a story to tell, the lesson of this novel may be that most people would rather not waste their time reading about these stories unless they have something new or interesting to teach us about life itself. The "short-story-ness" of the book wasn't so bad but it was not really tied together by a unifying theme. So many of the stories broke down into sex for sex's sake and didn't really relate to "love" unless the idea is that sex is the "Feast of Love". For example, "slurpees" on the 50 yard line at UM stadium; oral sex in the car while driving on the way to get married (with emphasis on not spilling a drop) - Why? How does this relate to the "Feast of Love"? It almost seemed like I was reading an old Penthouse Forums magazine. I had many unanswered questions about the relationship of the characters and felt I learned nothing about love. I would not recommend this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Divine and Lovely...
Review: This is my first exposure to the writing of Charles Baxter; that I will continue to read more is a testament to good writing. This book was a joy to read and I left it with a deeper respect for the differences in other people. From previous reviews, it appears as though there is a love/hate relationship between the reader and the characters. I loved them; laughed at them and with them. Each character narrates sections of the novel to the "writer," describing their lives over the brief period of time which this book covers. Granted the main thrust of each conversation centers around love, but so much more of their lives is included as well. The narrator-characters include Bradley, a coffee-shop owner, his employees, Chloe and Oscar, his first wife and second wife and his neighbor, a Jewish philosophy professor caught up with the "Christian" philosopher, Kierkegaard. Evil and love-absence threaten in the form of Oscar's dad, Bat. Jesus Christ briefly appears and asks for directions at a wedding reception. A fortune-teller predicts death accurately. Over all this or through all this, the sense of a Divine Love emanates outward.
Rating: 
Summary: A Snack of Lust
Review: I loved the idea of this book. Unfortunately, Baxter couldn't pull it off. His characterizations of most of the people in the story are so inauthentic that I had trouble believing anything they did, even when their actions occasionally seemed genuine. His take on young, punk love/life is laughable and often basely vulgar, which could be effective from a sharper pen. It's no wonder Baxter's a respected short story writer. This book is little more than overwritten shorts linked together by common characters. Still, even at 100 pages too long, I read it in two days, so there must have been some interest besides simply getting it off my nightstand. I did appreciate the ideas of love he tried to portray, but, again, I don't think he ever found an authentic voice, not even when it was his own character's. Because of this, and the pervading smugness which comes from a writer who mistakenly thinks he knows his characters (and the midwest), the book was often annoying. Add to the mix his cheerleading for the University of Michigan, the one thing the UM professor does understand, and it's enough to make me want to change my rating to one star. Mostly, I just expected more from a book with such a rich title. Read it for yourself if you'd like, but keep in mind your own standards of quality and don't fall for the fool's gold promises this book claims.
Rating: 
Summary: REALITY SHINES THROUGH THE ARTIFICE
Review: Like so many other recent novels (think of Sontag's IN AMERICA), the author jump-starts the book with the "reality" of author intrusion into the artifice of narrative. But soon, the narrative takes over & becomes reality. This makes the author's intrusions all the more annoying, especially in the final section which a good editor would have prevailed upon the writer to cut, cut, cut. There is some fine writing here & individual sections can be a pleasure to read, though some of the characters verge on stereotype (the older Jewish couple & the younger "hip" couple). This is highly readable and engaging in an environment subject to interruptions (waiting rooms, etc.), but not the best choice for a compelling experience.
Rating: 
Summary: It Works
Review: When an author attempts a novel in the first person, but the first person changes from character to character, it can be tricky business. Charles Baxter has accomplished it, effectively, believably, with wit and insight. I found this book to be an intriguing piece of writing expertise, and loved the way the characters criss-crossed each others' lives. Baxter has a wonderful ear, imagination and talent for creating and inter-weaving the lives of interesting people. Wanna read a good book this week? Read "Feast of Love."
Rating:
Summary: Breaking Character
Review: A book with plenty of wonderful metaphors and richly ironic observations, "The Feast of Love" is somewhat less than a sum of its parts. The main problem is that all the characters are written in minor variations of the same voice; I never really believed any of them were different from Bradley, whose narration is the seam upon which the other stories are stitched. I admit I did not especially like Bradley (his dog, by the way, shares his name--a bit odd). He seems weak and ineffectual, a furry fuzzball of a man with the nickname "Toad." Undoubtedly, you will appreciate the book more than I did if you like soft-spoken, homey middle-aged midwestern guys--college professor types. This fellow runs a coffee shop. The novel's other "speakers" (the chapters rotate among them) run the gamut from an old Jewish philosophy teacher, to a hard-charging female lawyer (a touch of misogynism is evident here), to a pair of dopey teens who fall in love with each other's idiosyncracies. Sometimes the potrayals seem stereotypical. There is also a dreadfully sentimental last chapter by the young girl. The novel strives for the cosmic but I mainly heard the undercurrent of the neurotic. And the narrator merry-go-round reminded my of an overly-clever Hollywood film--it's hard to lose yourself in the story when you are constantly reminded of its structure. But let me be clear. There are plenty of fine sentences, sometimes one following another, and if I were to compare this book to the summer epistles sold in a beach hotel's gift shop, I would give it five stars without hesitation. Yet the book clearly has the lofty ambition of literature, and in that realm it struggles for two.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: The reviewers have promised more than Charles Baxter can deliver. These are not real people. Nobody talks this way. There's something sad about about a tight-laced, uber-midwestern, middle-aged man trying to invent a couple of madcap stoner kids; in the first place I doubt that the way to become a love-happy laid-back dude is to have an evil, drunken, sex offender for a father. The ending of this book (and yes, it is too a novel) is both predictable and disappointing. You will not fail to note the page upon which we are invited to cry. You will also note (if you please) the page upon which we are to feel uplifted at long last. I do not recommend this book
Rating:
Summary: Say Goodbye to the Short Story
Review: Another fine novel from Charles Baxter. It's a funny, tender, and moving read. Once again, Baxter is given an opportunity to develop his "light" fiction (First Light, Shadowplay). There is a bit of Midsummer Night's Dream in Feast, but the reference has been a bit overplayed by critics (and the inside flap!). It offers some glimpses of "love", and the different ways love impacts the characters. The characters won't soon leave you. Sadly, it seems Baxter has given up on the short story. The Feast of Love reads like an indie screenplay. I have no doubt that Baxter will be successful in selling movie rights to this work. As wonderful as Baxter's novels are (and this one is no exception), it's sad to see our greatest living short story writer abandon his craft in pursuit of a wider audience and a bigger paycheck (ala Richard Ford).
Rating:
Summary: this is a terrible book.
Review: i was totally misled by all the reviews. it's very badly written in the shallow way that it skims across numerous characters. unfortunately most of the characters being genuinely boring ones with no worthy stories to tell, like bradley for example, (& who lead lives that are even more boring than mine) this becomes a very tough read indeed. & in the 'young-offshoot' portions, the triteness of a middle-aged professor/author attemting to recreate what young, 20-ish spaced-out lovers are thinking & feeling can only best be described as condescending. u never feel that chloe & oscar are real people & unfortunately again, their story occupies a significant portion of the novel, (or did it just feel that way to me?) effectively rendering an insincere tone to the overall proceedings on the whole. when the author covers non-bradley & non-chloe/oscar topics though, he has a better grip on the story, though the prose is still hardly "beautiful". not simple in a beautiful way, just plain simplistic. i would NOT reccommend this book at all.
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