Rating: 
Summary: I will think about this story for a long time
Review: This was a very satisfying story, that covers roughly the entire early adult years of the main character, Una's, life and how Ahab came into it. It is her most formative years, when she's learning about life leading up to our own Civil War period in the mid-1800's for a woman, for slaves, and the whaling town of Nantucket, and what influences her decisions on faith in a God, choices in friends, and human rights. It is not at all necessary to have read Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" to understand what happens, or to enjoy this novel. I would say that it probably appeals to intellectual women who also disregard societal norms today. It's downfall is that it could have used a good editor, which would have eliminated at least 100 pages of rambling. Overall satisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Life is like a box of chocolates
Review: I finally made it through Ahab's Wife because I was determined to finish it. I, and not just Una, was on a journey. I was searching for a point. I found the first 200 pages very gripping but the rest of the book lost my interest because it was not the telling of one story but of many different story threads and themes, that unfortunately, never get sewn together into a beautiful Kentucky quilt. I'm not sorry I read it but Una telling her life story was not enough to captivate me through 600 pages of various side plots that ring hollow with moral righteousness. The story became far too absurd and yet took itself too seriously to revel in the absurdity. It reminded me a lot of the movie Forest Gump but at least Forest Gump appeared to have some self-awareness of how ridiculous all of the coincidences and star cameos where and by that awareness made them entertaining. The smorgasbord of famous literary figures, artists, renowned abolitionists, scientists, madmen, dwarfs, slaves, suffragists, sea captains and gays drown the story with the ridiculous. The story would have been better served with fewer exoticized characters that were more developed. The most interesting characters die off or fade from the story far too early. My sister and I used to read a lot of romance novels and joke back and forth about the various carriage accidents, sudden deaths, and tragedies that would befall the poor main characters. This book was filled with so many and such varied calamities that I felt there was a great burden put on the character Una. She was just one woman, but she was forced to represent all woman who might possibly have lived in this time period and to suffer all of their losses and rejoice in all of their successes. The book had some great moments and some beautifully written lines but in the end I felt like it was simply too many under-realized characters and story lines that rambled on for too long. I would give the first 200 pages of the book 4 stars and the rest of the book just 2 stars. Once you read every word of Ahab's Wife you become numb to how much you enjoyed the first leg of the journey, so my final rating for the entire book is 2 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: I would have read 1000 pages of this story.
Review: A gripping story with adventure after adventure. An interesting look inside the life of the fictional Una, a remarkable 19th century woman, who hobnobs with historical characters Margaret Fuller and Frederick Douglas. Her relationships with friends and lovers are beautifully described. An exciting tour of the whaling profession and New England sea-side towns. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Test your endurance
Review: After reading the first chapter I was rubbing my hands together giddy with delight, and I believe you will too. This is a great author, this is great material! I could not touch the style and skill of just one of this author's paragraphs if I had a twenty years to do it. Honestly though, I eventually didn't enjoy the book as much as hoped. It's a little too feminine perhaps. As you continue it becomes obvious the book is somewhat of a soap box for "agendas" which wear thin and taint the prose. It was a challenge to see it through and read the whole thing.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing considering all the hoopla
Review: I never really liked "Moby Dick" but I had a fierce high school teacher who forced me to read to the end. Having finished it, though, I was left with a lasting impression of a unique character, an unusual narrator and a powerful story. Perhaps it was the lack of a stern prod this time around, but I didn't get past the first quarter of "Ahab's Wife" and never developed the slightest interest in the characters or their fates. It's certainly true, as other reviews have said, that the authorial "agenda" leaks through to stain the pages - a somewhat feminist or woman-centered story built on what I guess is called a 'post-modernist' worldview. But thats a worldview that I'm not altogether uncomfortable with - I don't think it was that which turned me off. And the writing is talented enough, I suppose - in a somewhat overblown way (that I thought was intended to mimic Melville.) I'd have to say that the characterizations, within the given historical context, were just plain unbelievable in the end. If this had been written as a piece of future fiction such as Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" it might have come off better in that department. There is something peculiar about attributing some elements of 'modernism' or 'post-modernism' to peoples of the last centuries... peculiar and not especially believable. This question - of how much of modern sentiment to inject into pre-modern characters - is probably the hardest part to balance with historical fiction. I think most good historical fiction seeks to tell a story about the times. This book seemed more intent, instead on making a point within the trappings of a story.
Rating:
Summary: A Wasted Weekend
Review: Una made me tired. Everything bad that could happen, did. She continued to revel in her own strength, her own life, her own freedom, blah, blah, blah... I was fascinated by the seafaring stories and the character of Ahab. Seems that I should have read Moby Dick instead. I guess that's why that call Mellville a classic and this one a recent "best-seller." That tell us that we are all wasting weekends. The Christian-bashing in this book (in the name of tolerance, of course) was like fingernails on a chalkboard - just rubbed me the wrong way. Una just doesn't "get it." Transcendentalism, Universalism, etc all get their equal kudos, but she is absolutely closed-minded where Christianity is concerned. Two stars is a generous rating. Maybe I should reconsider. Should I order the hardcover or paperback edition of Moby Dick?
Rating:
Summary: Plagarism
Review: I just finished rereading Moby Dick and then read, Ahab's Wife. It is a soup with too many ingredients. PLUS in the other reviews I didn't see any mention of the fact that she lifted word for word Ishmael's , "Whenever I find myself growing grim..." and put these words on P. 646 of her book . Obviously, something fishy here.
Rating:
Summary: A whale of a book, includes some blubber
Review: I let "Ahab's Wife" sit on the shelf for months after purchasing it, worried that it would turn out to be some sort of preachy feminist pastiche. I needn't have worried. Though its protagonist is no slouch as a feminist, that wasn't among its several big flaws, and for me the flaws were comfortably outweighed by its rich rewards. Taken sentence for sentence, almost all the writing is luscious. The author's love of "Moby-Dick", and her sharp-eyed fidelity to its setting, time, and characters, is evident throughout. Only during the brief part of the novel actually taking place on the Pequod does Naslund attempt to replicate Melville's voice, or rather several of his voices, in a sequence of chapters in the form of soliloquies and playlets. That effort is as successful as it is amusing, but the remaining, non-Pequod, passages are kinder on the syntax-challenged 21st century reader than Melville was. I loved the accurate period detail, on quilting and cooking and lightouse keeping, on blubber rendering and religious factions. I enjoyed the way the story flowed effortlessly along, but left plenty of Easter eggs for the alert reader to find. (What is the model in "Moby-Dick" for the ship Sussex? Why do the castaways throw their raincatching cups away before they are rescued? Why does Giles ask Una for her earring on the Alba Albatross?) The first two thirds of the book has a powerful narrative drive, with vivid characters, robust suspense and dire catastrophes; powerful enough that the momentum carried me through the doldrums of the last third of the book, which meanders, and reads less like a novel than like the diary entries of some pleasant, progressive young 1840s matron with a penchant for name dropping. Naslund tries too hard to stuff the kitchen sink into those later chapters. And in the meantime we learn too little about the characters we came to care about in the first half, and Una seems too blithely unmarked by her earlier travails. For most of the book, I admired her resilience, but by the end I was wondering if past a certain point resilience doesn't become a character flaw. For as long as the book maintains its fine first wind, Una emerges as a fit mate for Captain Ahab: as independent and blasphemous as he is (no accident, surely, that the novel contains exactly 666 pages!), but balancing his thundering "No!" to the Creator with a steadfast, sensuous "Yes" to the creatures. It's only in that sense that this novel takes a revisionist stance toward its great predecessor. Unfortunately, the flaccid last third of the book drains Una's "yes" of much of its credibility. Despite the promise of the early chapters, it fails to resonate at a mythic depth comparable to Ahab's "no." Still, it's a good read, and no more competent, more pleasurable, or more slyly appreciative a spinoff on Ahab's story is likely to come along in the next hundred years.
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. It is a long story, full of twists and turns and unusual characters. Ahab's Wife has everything - cannibalism, whale hunts, adventures at sea, romance, historical Boston, feminism, chauvinism...you name it!
Rating:
Summary: Irritating and implausible
Review: Never having been much of a rebel, I fear admiting that I detested this book with a depth of passion I have rarely felt. The premise was wonderful, and Naslund certainly can craft lovely prose. However, from the dramatic beginning, each episode of the heroine's life grew increasingly implausible. I realize the intention was to place twentieth century sensibilities in a nineteenth century world, but did Una have to encounter (and nobly aid) every marginalized group in existance? Have every extreme life experience? Meet every famous person who visited Nantucket? What is the likelihood that a nineteenth century woman really would have had a handy and stereotypically male chum to accompany her on her shopping trips? Most importantly, was it necessary for Una to be so revoltingly smug? Though it does add a new dimension towards explaining why Ahab became so obsessed with that whale - anything to get out of the house is my guess. Beyond these personal issues of taste, I was annoyed by the negative stereotyping of the Christian characters. Naslund's own religious/cultural biases intruded upon the book in several important ways. To wit, I found myself wondering if Naslund had actually ever read anything by Hawthorne, or if he just served as a device for her own prejudices. The extent to which she seemed to misunderstand his writings was surprising in what appeared to be a generally well-researched book. On a more positive note, I was glad I worked my way through the entire book. What carried me through my hope that Una would fall victim to Moby Dick (or any convenient device of death). While I was doomed to be disappointed at her continual triumphs, my patience was rewarded in an unexpected way. Don't worry - there are no spoilers here! It is just that the ending is wonderfully (and, I imagine, unintentionally) hilarious, and almost justified the effort expended getting through this one.
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