Rating: 
Summary: Hard to put down.
Review: I love Buffalo, so I'm unabashedly partial. But Lauren Belfer successfully constructs a potboiler story around the framework of the fascinating history of a once-shining Buffalo, New York. A fascinating time period, 1901, you get huge doses of the rapid changes wrought by the industrial revolution. The main character, Louisa Barrett, is compelling, interesting, and seems very real. I loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: I had difficulty staying with the drama. Too slow.
Review: Having lived briefly in Buffalo, I looked forward to revisiting the city and getting to know her better through this book from a native. The plot is as thick as soup and I can't get it stirred enough to see what is in it. Honestly, I just don't like the main character.
Rating: 
Summary: quite as dull as a history lesson told by a computer
Review: I rushed out to buy this book. I dove into it that night. I cringed when I read it.The book is long, drawn out, and boring. There are no secrets which are not overly predictable, there is no action that isn't broken by paragraphs of background. She seems to have created three characters, and then gave them new faces and names whenever she needed a new one. And her years of research? Other than reading biographies of the 'real' main characters, I couldn't see any. There are several factual errors a brief glance of a tour guide of Buffalo would have fixed. I have no clue what the hype is all about. City of Light was as enteraining as a plate of sawdust.
Rating: 
Summary: A captivating, must read book!
Review: From the first pages, I knew I was hooked and would be spending the next few days finding the time to finish reading this book! It is too wonderful to put down.
Rating:
Summary: A glorious historical novel.
Review: From the first few pages, I was so engrossed in the history and characters that I couldn't put the book down. It is a grand historical novel, like Ragtime and the Alienist, but I enjoyed City of Light more. I was facinating both by the history of Buffalo and the story of the industry and people that shaped the city. I have already given copies to several friends.
Rating:
Summary: I can't wait for Lauren Belfer's next novel!
Review: I loved this book! I couldn't put it down. I agree that this would be a great book for a book club. There is a lot to discuss. The characters were extremely well-developed but not predictable. There were many plot surprises but none that suspended belief. The female protagonist was complex and at times perplexing, but always incredibly interesting. Because she was a "bluestocking", she was able to enjoy some of the privileges not available to women at the turn of the century. The role of women in society at that time is richly detailed and there are several female characters who offer different perspectives of the choices women had in those days. Like Memoirs of a Geisha, City of Light tells a compelling story but also conveys interesting information about a different time or way of life -- in this case, Buffalo in the early 1900s and the impact electricity had on this country. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: A Nearly Perfect First Novel
Review: "City of Light" is a highly imaginative and impressive first novel. As we approach the end of the millenium, awash in microchips and routine space travel, the new technologies of a century ago fascinate many of us. Eric Zencey's "Panama," which takes place in Paris in 1892, is also preoccupied with new technologies, and in that novel, too, lies a suspenseful mystery. "City of Light," set in Buffalo in 1901, is narrated by a schoolmistress, Louisa Barrett, who witnesses the birth of the Niagara Falls Power Plant, and the widespread distribution of electricity. Louisa narrates her tale presumably from a perspective eight years after the events have occurred. In truth, Louisa is narrating from our own time, with many of our own late 20th century attitudes toward the roles of women and blacks and the working class. Grover Cleveland is portrayed as a philandering pig. Louisa speculates about Mrs. Grover Cleveland: "Did she allow herself to believe the rumors which his enemies put out about his indiscretions? Probably she rationalized that enemies will always find some weapon, and this was the one they had found for him." Louisa might as well be pondering Hillary Clinton's thoughts about Bill. Although this novel is much more than a traditional murder mystery, nonetheless, when a visiting engineer is found drowned below the ice of an ornamental lake and strange events involving the power plant spin out from there, it seems that Belfer must follow the conventions of mystery writing. Yet her sometimes tenuous grasp of the conventions of mystery writing mars this novel. A young girl is threatened. But when the man who threatens her gives her a marshmallow bar, Louisa doesn't worry about the girl eating it. The reader, however, fixates on the marshmallow bar: Is it poisoned? At another juncture a newborn infant is lost and never found. Why? Despite these small quibbles, I highly recommend this wonderfully gripping novel. It is a literate page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: A great choice for book discussion groups.
Review: City of Light offers the reader an engrossing overview of an American City at the height of its power - Buffalo, NY in 1901. As the vividly detailed story unfolds, the intelligent and sympathetic heroine and the social and political intrigue relating to the development of electric power captivates the reader. There is an ingenious interweaving of real and fictional characters, which adds dimension and suspense to the story. This is a wonderful choice for book discussion groups.
Rating:
Summary: Self-indulgently slow and vastly boring
Review: If this is an epic, it only qualifies in terms of the challenge that a reader faces in finishing it. Windy and glacially-paced, it reads like the characters are moving in slow motion. I cannot understand all the hype.
Rating:
Summary: This is a superb book.
Review: The setting is Buffalo at the turn of the Century, Niagra Falls, and the development of hydroelectric power. The story is compelling and suspenseful, the characters are extremely well developed, and the descriptions are vivid. I feel as though I were there. Bravo!
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