Rating: 
Summary: the best book i ever read
Review: this absolutely the best book i ever read. it is a hard book to explain....when people ask me what it is about i find it hard to describe without doing it injustice......it is just riveting and it captured me....i read it 3 years ago and i still am in love with it....just read it.....you'll be glad you did....
Rating: 
Summary: There Are Better Books out There
Review: Meh. I'd say this is the most mediocre book I have read in a long time. It was strongly recommended to me by a friend and, since it was a finalist for the National Book Award a few years ago, I thought it might be worth reading. Now I remember why I respect the Booker Prize so much more than the National Book Award. The novel was fine-I'm not sorry I read it-but it is really not much more than a good story without a lot of substance behind it. I prefer novels that are more likely to make me ponder. The one literary element that really had potential, the book's namesake painting, was woefully underused as nothing more than an explanatory device. Probably not an author I'll try again.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best ever
Review: This is one of the best books I've read recently, and maybe one of the best ever. Considering that two recent reads are Margaret Atwoods' The Blind Assassin and Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, that is saying a lot! It earns all of the strong reviews, and then some. Partway through, I became slightly impatient, wondering where this was going, or if, in fact, it was going anywhere. I kept reading , though, because I was intrigued and charmed by all the diferent stories and the different voices. By the end, the book just took my breath away. These characters will stay with me for a long time and it was a privilege to meet them
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely perfect in every way
Review: This book is amazing and a 2004 must read for both guys and gals! If you enjoyed movies like Short Cuts or 6 Degree's of Separation you will love this book and understand how it's laid out (i.e. separate characters - living separate lives - somehow connected). This book proved to me that ANY unique thought, personality trait, quirk/tick, phrase/snappy word selection, word choice, vision, day dream, fear, insecurity, issue, event, etc. that I thought was truly unique to ME and made me different from everyone else is/was a big farce. Charles Baxter was able to provide me with a 'grow up' wake up call - prove to me that there is nothing original nor unique about me or how I think or what I say or how I act, etc. My entire 'supposedly unique character/self' is smeared across every character (male and female) in this book. All men over the age of 30 should be required to read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A modern Symposium...
Review: I see this book compared to Plato's Symposium in the critical blurbs. That's fair enough - Baxter references it himself in the book. I admire any writer who can write about philosophy so effortlessly while not being boring. As soon as one of the characters claimed to be obsessed with Kierkegaard, I was hooked.Yes, this book is a feast of love. It is about romantic love in all its aspects - young and not so young. The most adorable couple in the book are the teenagers Oscar and Chloe (pronounced "Klow-Ay"). They are just punks who spend most of their time having sex, but their dreams are surprisingly traditional. Don't be scared off if you think that a book about love is going to be sappy - it isn't. Baxter breathes life into all of his diverse characters. We come to feel for them - their dreams, their fears, and their frustrations. When tragedy finally strikes, we are so involved we become heartbroken too. Baxter writes in an interview style, effectively giving us multiple first-person narrators. The conversational writing quickly hooks the reader and moves him briskly along. It is like an Altman film - there is no central character, just an interesting journey into the lives and loves of these Midwestern people. A very good read.
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