Rating: 
Summary: Exceptional reading.
Review: I love everything written by Garrison Keillor. I alway listen to his radio shows, I cannot miss it and I cannot forget it.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional reading.
Review: I love everything written by Garrison Keillor. I alway listen to his radio shows, I cannot miss it and I cannot forget it.
Rating:
Summary: laughing out loud
Review: I read this one over the span of two weekends. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Keillor describes well what is feels like to grow up in Minnesota and go and live with "Big City" People from the East. Having lived a little of what he described may have made it more realistic though. Definitely more valuable to me than having breakfast a perkins on an ordianry morning (the equivalent value)
Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment
Review: I really enjoy Keillor's sense of humor and the compassion shown in his Mr. Blue column. However, this book, my first foray into a Keillor novel, was a huge disappointment. There were a couple of funny passages, but in its entirety the book was excruciatingly dull. I never felt a connection with the main character- he seemed whiny and aimless, dreading the future, and ultimately content to end up as a hausfrau. None of the characters were deeper than a caricature, and their limited, stuttered development was shown to be pointless at the book's conclusion. Perhaps it was asking too much to hope for some sort of epiphany from John. But if this book had meaning, I completely failed to see it. There was no warmth, no spirit, no greater understanding- I simply read a boring novel that went nowhere and tossed it aside.
Rating:
Summary: ....and all the children are above average
Review: I'm an old Keillor fan - way back to my college days when he had a morning radio show on MPR and performed at the U of M St. Paul Student Center - crowds numbering 30-40. The characters are all so familiar and as the wife of a Lutheran Minnesotan, I was often doubled over with laughter reading this book. My family's favorite line: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like Grandpa - not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car." I agree with some previous reviewer - this isn't a novel. Why didn't Keillor's editors insist this be a book of vignettes or essays? Those forms would have given the material more impact.
Rating:
Summary: Wobegon Boy is classic Keillor
Review: I've been a Garrison Keillor fan for nearly 20 years and I've read all of his books. I thoroughly enjoyed Wobegon Boy. I found myself reading long passages to my wife as we lay on the beach. She didn't mind the interruptions in her reading either. I guess, then we really both read Wobegon Boy. It probably helps to be a PHC listener since many of the book's characters are familiar to us through the radio show. Even those unfamilair with Keillor's show, however, should enjoy the clever writing and gentle barbs at college culture, public radio and small town Minnesota life that Keillor dishes out.
Rating:
Summary: First Human American book read in years
Review: I've only just come to Keillor. I knew about him and always meant to read something by him, but never got around to it. I've seen pictures of him, but never heared his voice. I never knew he had a radio show. I'me about half way through the hard back version of Lake Wobegon Boy. About two chapters in, I suddenly began to feel very warm towards this book. For the first time in a long time I was touched by an American book which seemed to offer a glimpse into a way of life which reminded me of home, families, relationships and so on, which I have only really picked up of late in a certain genre of English novel like McEwan. I know very little of Keillor, his background or even of Wobegon is a real place. All I know is that this book is valuable to me as it touched an area seldom visited.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, humorous, overall good reading
Review: If you are from the northern Mid-west you will quickly relate to the humor in this fun book. The characters come to life and you are back in your home town with the folks with whom you grew up. Has you chuckling from the first page to the last. Not for skimming as the humor must be savored.
Rating:
Summary: Keillor sans Hymns
Review: If you like the dry wit of Keillor but can't stomach the muggy sentiment of all the hymns (on The Prairie Home Companion), this is a welcome, and very amusing, distillation of what Keillor has to offer. The off-hand remarks about people functions, and life in general, are reminiscent of the style of Elmore Leonard (the best).
Rating:
Summary: Keillor fans won't be disappointed until maybe the last page
Review: It seems to me that few people are neutral about Garrison Keillor, his radio show and his novels. You love them or they leave you cold. I'm in the former camp and Wobegon Boy did not leave me disappointed- until the last page. Many passages had me laughing out quite loud, especially his put-down of public radio. But the last paragraph of the book has left me totally confused. Keillor will probably think I am a dolt, but I want him to explain it. Also, on a more minor point, I want to know how he drove from upstate New York into Manhattan over the Tri-Boro Bridge! (His other descriptions of New York City were so wonderful that this mistake disappointed me.)
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