Rating: 
Summary: Well-developed flair for the English language
Review: Baxter's novel is most definitely a keeper. This is the kind of book that one person's going to lay out the necessary cash for, devour word by word, and then hand off to all of their friends. I'd recommend being the one laying out the cash. Not only will you be the literary hero of all your friends, but you'll also get to reclaim the book when all of your friends have finished feasting on it and place it on your bookshelf as a testament to your impeccable taste. Go to SYNGE.com for more of my review.
Rating: 
Summary: The Feast of Love
Review: Mine! Never have I read a book that I actually became attached to. This was my first time reading Baxter. When I started reading it, I carried it everywhere from sun up to sun down until it was finished (three days). It's kind of like eating a favorite food, you just can't stop -- getting to the end of each chapter was like -- "Oh, just a little bit more."The characters are so alive and you come to love them all just for who they are. There are many surprises, yet they all interweave with effortless spontaneity. Being a "local" and 4th generation Ann Arborite (the actual home of the author and setting for the story) gave it even more meaning for me. Knowing all of the actual sites and landmarks described in the book made it even more interesting to read (and I just loved Baxter's play on words with names of people and places -- if you're from AA you'll get it). The author's ability to articulate each character's thoughts and feelings, and interjection of intimate descriptions of them, is glorious and heartwarming. I really identified with Diana, I understand her complexities and struggles with loving and being loved, and the inherent fears of her life. I am anxiously waiting for the rest of the world to discover this literary gem, and also for its debut on the big screen. The book was a feast for the soul -- full of emotions, beauty, and spirit. There is something for every taste. It put me in touch with my own life and feelings. It makes you really think about the truth, "everyone has a story to tell" and everyone has a different perspective, a reality about the way things are. The conclusion leaves the reader with hope and a feast of visions for the future. Brilliant! Thanks Charlie
Rating: 
Summary: Inventive but disappointing
Review: Considering the highly positive review in the NYT Book Review [which brought this book to my attention] and the Ann Arbor/Michigan references to which I would be attuned, I found this novel very disappointing. One of the previous Amazon reviewers noted that the novel was "inventive." It certainly is but the execution does not match the conception. It is possible that the brilliance of the novel I read just before opening this one ["White Teeth" by Zadie Smith] set the bar for appreciating fiction at a rather high level. These are very different kinds of novels. All the same, in each case, one has to ask: "Does the prose, and especially the dialogue, ring true?" In "Feast of Love," I was rarely convinced that it did. One often reads a novel because its setting is a familiar one. So, we can expect to find familiar characters. But what does the writer do with these characters so that they are both familiar and interesting? The line between familiarity and cliche is a tricky one and in this case I did not feel that it was negotiated successfully. This was especially true with the way the characters of Smith's first two wives were dealt with. They never left the stock character pigeon hole. It is easy to be touched by the plight of the young Chloe [although the playing around with the way she mispronounces her name and the reactions of others to this silliness are embarrassing]. But, there is a troubling disconnect between her character and the language used when she is ostensibly describing her earlier thoughts and behavior to the novelist within the novel. It is possible that this is a kind of self-parody on the part of Baxter the writer on the book jacket vis-a-vis Baxter the writer/character inside the novel itself. If this is the case, it's a good [yes, inventive] idea, but it does not come off. After a while, we are left with the rather commonplace thought that, in the book as in life, few people have much in the way of self-knowledge. Baxter may be showing the reader his own humility by asking the reader to not rely too too much on his, the writer's, self-knowledge. It's a worthy sentiment but, in this case, it does not contribute to better story-telling. And, if how well the story is told is the key criterion for evaluating a novel, this one should not receive full marks.
Rating:
Summary: A Dreamy Smorgasbord
Review: Dishes of love, set out on a sheet-covered table, include spicy female enchantment, a pale abandonment, tender young shoots of everlasting love, passion that overwhelms reason, and reason that temporarily overwhelms passion. As the caterer for this dinner, Baxter does not refrain from some bitters and sours to temper his sweets and delights. He displays all and shows the empty plates as well. I felt contented and sleepy as I finished this novel. I had tastes and samples of loves, and I had something in my tummy to digest for a while as well. Something to talk about and something to think about. One reason you should read this book is to be able to resonate with one or more of the characters in their love experience and finally to find and hold hope in your own heart.
Rating:
Summary: A breathtakingly beautiful novel!
Review: Charles Baxter, author of the book Believers, has a writer's block. He is wandering around his neighborhood late at night, hoping to get ideas for his novel. When he sits on a bench, a young fellow named Bradley has a marvelous idea for a novel. The name of the novel is The Feast of Love. This is a wonderful piece of literature. It vaguely resembles Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, except that this novel is utterly contemporary. The novel is about love. The author explores different kinds of human relationships. There's Bradley: the hopeless romantic; there's Harry Gingsberg: an old philosopher with a troubled son; then there's Chloe and Oscar: the young, wild lovers. Chloe and Oscar touched me; their love was so pure that it made me cry. This novel is breathtakingly beautiful. I love the language; the characters' voices are very expressive. I highly recommend this novel. Now run along and get it!
Rating:
Summary: SCRUMPTIOUS!
Review: Here it is: I love this book. Hilarious and heartbreaking, exquistely made, this feast celebrates ordinary souls in pursuit of that simplest and most compex,that most mundance and most magical, of nourishments. "The unexpected is always upon us," quotes the aging Harry Ginsburg. And so it is for these voices, teenaged one-time drug user Chloe to insomniac writer "Charlie," and for we readers. Even on the sentence-level come unexpected turns, Toad's first wife, for instance, telling us, "She smelled of sweat and crushed roses and the future."
Rating:
Summary: An Enlarged Heart
Review: One of Baxter's characters suffers from an enlarged heart, and that's what this reader suffered too after reading The Feast of Love; pangs of sorrow hit me hard in the concluding chapters. Baxter chronicles the love stories of several of our neighbors in a voice like an aging Holden Caufield's. Somehow Baxter's hypnotic prose moves us to realize the wisdom of both Soren Kierkegaard and a roadside psychic in the character of a clerk in a suburban mall coffee shop. And the Michigan setting is perfect--from the moonlit 50-yard line in the U. of M. stadium to the ill-fated honeymoon up north. Reading this novel was a wondrous experience.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely perfect in every way
Review: This may be my favorite book that I have ever read. It is absolute magic. Plot is secondary. This story, instead, is an exploration into different kinds of love. It twists and meanders without a clear destination, much like love itself. Along the way, we meet slightly otherworldly characters. Most of all, we get to listen to Baxter write. And he can WRITE! Reading this novel is like reading the most beautiful poetry by Frost and Yeats put into prose form. The words alone would be almost enough, but the words combined with the wonderful stories will simply take your breath away. I found something to identify with in each and every one of the characters in this book. Some characters I actually fell in love with--Chloe and Oscar, with their perfect, intense love; Bradley, with his immutable optimism and his desire to help his lover in every possible way; the Ginsburgs and their perpetual, unconditional love for their children; Bradley's dog, Bradley, who perfectly illustrates why people have pets (or why pets have people). Some characters are certainly less magical, like Diana and the Bat. But they do not qualify as villains. They have a place in this novel, and it is not to be a mere foil to the types of love depicted by Chloe, Oscar, the Bradleys and the Ginsburgs. I really cannot heap enough praise on this masterpiece. I have plans to reread The Feast of Love forthwith.
Rating:
Summary: Tour de force
Review: Where has Charles Baxter been all my life? A friend whose opinion I respect recommended this book to me, and I simply couldn't put it down.
At first, I couldn't see the connections between the various "pieces," and I thought perhaps I was reading a collection of loosely woven together short stories. But no. The Feast of Love is a novel, all right, and a spectacular one. Essentially, the characters are connected by their relationships within a small coffee shop, and we get to know them thru their interactions with each other in small but very poignant vignettes. And we inevitably grow to care deeply about them.
Baxter's book explores many facets of love: passion, infatuation, loss, idealism, old age, parent/child love, etc. Much of it is touching and intense, but must is also very, very funny - I mean, laugh out loud hard enough to waken a sleeping spouse kind of funny.
This is a masterful piece of fiction; don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Loved It
Review: The Feast of Love is a beautiful book of the stories of different people's lives. Its unique format, using the author as the story-gatherer, draws the reader's interest right away. Baxter's writing is engaging. Skillfully, he utilizes different styles and voices as the narrator changes per chapter. I was amazed at how convincing, realistic and charming this novel was. At different points in the novel, I laughed and cried. What a book. I highly recommend it.
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