Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, but Rabbit Run was Better
Review: Not quite as captivating as "Rabbit Run" but quite excellently written; I guess writing about somebody's slow demise just doesn't lend itself to intense interest, not like the living foibles of a character's life, as you find in "Run." Updike is a master of prose and this is extremely well researched. Very few living people can write fiction as well.
Rating: 
Summary: A Virtuoso Finale for the Rabbit Series
Review: Rabbit at Rest, In Which Rabbit Is Shown the Evidence of His Mortality But Chooses to Thumb His Nose At It. Yeah, even in his old age and semi-retirement, Rabbit Angstrom is expected to toe the line. And so he does. But not exactly as his loved ones would have hoped. Back he comes to the basketball court to recapture -- what? His earlier glory? Or simply his essence? His instincts are right on target. He is responding to his sense that he may have begun to outlive his usefulness. The ending is perfect: It really ISN'T as bad as it seems. Faced with the daunting task of ending the Rabbit series in a manner fit for his own particular genius, Updike succeeds brilliantly.
Rating:
Summary: An Ending for "Mr. Death"
Review: Rabbit feels death approaching him in one way or another in every episode of this tetralogy, and Rabbit at Rest finds a man who finally had carved out a position for himself, in an uncertain world, watch as his relevance gets stripped away, piece by piece, bringing him full circle. Rabbit, Run begins on the basketball court with the boys, where Harry attempts to again feel in a game he has once mastered what his actual life does not bring him, the ecstasy of being in control, on top, a winner. Of course even a few years after he was a youthful star, he senses he can never become that person again. Thirty years later he is still trying to become that person. Always his own worst enemy, his sexual preoccupations lead him into his worst nightmares, and his consumption of junk food doesn't help either. It's as if his bitterness towards the world, towards God perhaps, for letting him peak so early, leads him to the conclusion that the best he can do is make himself feel better, no matter what the cost. What makes this all so fascinating is that, while seemingly a selfish monster, Harry is, after all, someone we like and relate to; a pretty nice, even-tempered, intelligent guy. Who just happens to actively hate his own son, sleep with the wives of the people closest to him, and slowly poison the life from himself. How human.
Rating:
Summary: R.I.P. Rabbit
Review: The last novel in John Updike's famous tetralogy finds that life is finally winding down for Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, as America heads into 1989 with a new President and an ever-evolving set of cultural icons and reference points. After three decades of making mistakes -- both personal and professional -- and working like a dog, Harry is ready for retirement from his position as sales manager of the Toyota dealership his wife Janice inherited from her parents, and he and Janice are dividing their time between their native Brewer, Pennsylvania, and their new condo in Florida. Now fifty-five, Harry is besieged by the deleterious effects of aging and careless eating. Despite his concern for the burning pains in his chest and his excessive weight, he can't stop snacking on junk food, and the consequences are nasty: He has a mild heart attack while taking his granddaughter Judy sailing and, even after having an angioplasty, defies his doctor's advice to change his diet. The man has never been able to control his insatiability, and we, the readers, wait patiently for the crash and burn. However, it is Harry's son Nelson who is going through the worst travails. Having been left in charge of the car dealership and, like his father, never one for self-discipline, he has developed a cocaine habit which he finances partly by siphoning profits from the business and which makes him a danger to his wife Pru and their two children not to mention the entire Angstrom family fortune. It is typical of Harry's impudence that his extramarital sexual activity, a subject of every Rabbit novel, this time extends to his daughter-in-law, while Nelson is trying to clean himself up at a treatment center. Updike has always fashioned Harry and Janice as a married representation of all the combined good and bad of the national ethic, a sort of warped suburban American Gothic. At the end of the decade in which AIDS entered the public conscience and S & L scandals wracked the economy, there is something wistful about Harry's participation in a Fourth of July parade dressed as Uncle Sam, a symbol of post-Reagan America -- proud, overbearing, bloated, dying. Harry as a character hasn't changed much since "Rabbit is Rich," but his immutability is part of his appeal. His peculiar thoughts on the practical aspects of mundane things -- a tour guide's chirpy attitude, the sexual implications of a waitress's hairstyle, the idiosyncrasies of television news anchors -- are always illuminating. The novel is a vehicle for Updike's flowing commentary, delivered in his inimitably witty prose, on pop culture as it existed in 1989, which is still recent enough for the memories to flicker in all their pastel-highlighted tackiness.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, well written, read rabbit is rich first
Review: This book continues the story of Harry Angstrom. What was bugging him in rabbit is rich ? The answer isn't clear but theres definitely some outstanding issue carried over from the previous book. It becomes evident in his relationships with the women in his life, whether through cheating on his wife or his casual attitude to a mistress. He does mellow in this book as a real person might in old age. John Updike does a fine job of realising a character with modern emotional troubles (yes I mean 40 years ago it wouldn't have qualified as a problem) As women become more empowered, as the Angstrom's wives do in the book, Harry's emotional frailties become evident. Updike tantalizes the reader with what this means but I guess I'll have to wrestle with that myself.
Rating:
Summary: What 5 stars are for
Review: This book is greatness. It is what five stars are for. Obviously, being the last of the Rabbit series, it is about our hero's demise. There's very little I can say that won't "spoil the ending" for you. The ending is really touching. The author ties it all together. He even closes a loose end about his "other" daughter, letting us know that the girl he met at the car lot, and making a reprise at the hospital, is in fact his own biological daughter. He goes the way he should go. And his wife and son react just right. If you don't appreciate this book, it isn't because there is something lacking in the book, it is because there's something lacking in you. Sorry, but you just missed it.
Rating:
Summary: What 5 stars are for
Review: This book is greatness. It is what five stars are for. Obviously, being the last of the Rabbit series, it is about our hero's demise. There's very little I can say that won't "spoil the ending" for you. The ending is really touching. The author ties it all together. He even closes a loose end about his "other" daughter, letting us know that the girl he met at the car lot, and making a reprise at the hospital, is in fact his own biological daughter. He goes the way he should go. And his wife and son react just right. If you don't appreciate this book, it isn't because there is something lacking in the book, it is because there's something lacking in you. Sorry, but you just missed it.
Rating:
Summary: What 5 stars are for
Review: This book is greatness. It is what five stars are for. Obviously, being the last of the Rabbit series, it is about our hero's demise. There's very little I can say that won't "spoil the ending" for you. The ending is really touching. The author ties it all together. He even closes a loose end about his "other" daughter, letting us know that the girl he met at the car lot, and making a reprise at the hospital, is in fact his own biological daughter. He goes the way he should go. And his wife and son react just right. If you don't appreciate this book, it isn't because there is something lacking in the book, it is because there's something lacking in you. Sorry, but you just missed it.
Rating:
Summary: A satisfying final installment of the Rabbit books
Review: This book is the final volume in the four-novel saga of Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, so you know it is going to tie up some loose ends, and it does, some neatly and some not-so-neatly. As a novel, it has the same high-quality writing as the other three, a credit to Updike's ability to maintain his creative energy over the years. As the final installment of the Rabbit cycle, it fits well into the overall story. Rabbit in his mid-fifties still struggles with the same character flaws he had as a young man, but he has also mellowed with age, making him if not more likeable at least more sympathetic. He does a lot of reflecting on the course of his life, and you get to understand how he feels about some to the things he did in previous novels, how he feels about his wife, children, and grandchildren, about living in Mt. Judge/Brewer all his life. This novel rounds out his character. He finally stops being so driven and is able to stand and absorb the good and the bad in his life. I absolutely recommend this book to those who have read any of the other Rabbit books. It also works as a stand-alone novel, but I think the story is so much richer in the context of the previous books.
Rating:
Summary: A satisfying final installment of the Rabbit books
Review: This book is the final volume in the four-novel saga of Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, so you know it is going to tie up some loose ends, and it does, some neatly and some not-so-neatly. As a novel, it has the same high-quality writing as the other three, a credit to Updike's ability to maintain his creative energy over the years. As the final installment of the Rabbit cycle, it fits well into the overall story. Rabbit in his mid-fifties still struggles with the same character flaws he had as a young man, but he has also mellowed with age, making him if not more likeable at least more sympathetic. He does a lot of reflecting on the course of his life, and you get to understand how he feels about some to the things he did in previous novels, how he feels about his wife, children, and grandchildren, about living in Mt. Judge/Brewer all his life. This novel rounds out his character. He finally stops being so driven and is able to stand and absorb the good and the bad in his life. I absolutely recommend this book to those who have read any of the other Rabbit books. It also works as a stand-alone novel, but I think the story is so much richer in the context of the previous books.
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