Rating: 
Summary: An OK book
Review: As an Anne-Fan it pains me to give this book three stars, but in all honesty it wasn't her best work. I liked the story, however it lacked the snap that usually grabs my attention. If you're looking for a story that dives into the complexities of real, everyday relationships pick up Joe Jones (a five star book by any means). If you're a fan, don't pass this book up because it's getting a three star average. It's a really nice story and contains enough Anne humor to make you snicker in public.
Rating:
Summary: Not every at bat can be a home run
Review: I have loved Anne Lamott's writing, humor and life perspective for some time and was anxious to read "Blue Shoe." I must reluctantly admit that I am a bit disappointed with this latest effort. In some ways I enjoyed the slow, meandering pace of the book and appreciated the poingency of her descriptions of ordinary life and her ability to find perfection in parting with a beloved dog, mothering a dying mother and stuggling with moody, insecure children. The biggest problem with the book is a lack of substantive plot. I kept waiting for something climatic to happen and it never did. Maybe, that's Ms. Lamott's point on some level--life is just a meandering journey without an identifiable plot.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like Anne Lamott's style, you'll LOVE this book
Review: It wanders, it digresses, it circles around and sneaks up on you from behind. It beguiles, it teases, and it delivers. Mattie's life is a mess, her love affairs are a mess, her mother is a mess . . . and aren't we all in some kind of mess? What I especially loved about Blue Shoe is that there's a little mystery thread running through all the messiness that somehow manages to connect everything in a very tidy way that's not typical of Lamott's writing. Very clever and simple, at the same time. Read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good talent gone bad.
Review: If you haven't read Anne Lamott's, Traveling Mercies, read it instead of this; if you have read Traveling Mercies, read it again instead of this.
Rating:
Summary: HORRIBLE, SHALLOW AND PREACHY
Review: This book was chosen as a selection for my book club. I can honestly say this is about the worst book I have ever had the misfortune to read. Half-way through the book I found myself asking -- what is the point? where is the story? I plodded thru Lamott's ramblings about Mattie and her other uninteresting characters that were peppered with her preachy and cheesy religious references and wondered how this book made it to print. If it is true that the author uses her own life as her inspiration, she needs to get over herself and find something more interesting/compelling and important to write about. Needless to say, I do not recommend this book to anyone! (and I am bitter for having had to buy it in hardback!)
Rating: 
Summary: I stayed up until three to finish this book . . .
Review: I stayed up way too late last night reading this book cover to cover, and I don't regret it one bit. Read this book if you love to meet new characters whose lives are as messy as your own, and who still get out of the bed in the morning (mostly).
Read it if you are now, or have ever been, part of a family and feel puzzled about the experience.
Read it if you have ever had a good luck piece to get you through rough times (remember, gloomy December is almost here!). I enjoyed this book as much as _Rosie_, and I will recommend it to my friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the Anne I love
Review: I bought this book eagerly hoping to be as uplifted and mesmerized as I have been by all her previous books. I was disappointed from the beginning, but stuck with it because I couldn't imagine it wouldn't get better. But it didn't! The story was predictable, the characters uneven and uninteresting, and the preachy comments annoying. She communicated her christian faith in "Traveling Mercies" with wit, finese, and grace, but none of this transpired in the pages of her current novel. I felt the characters were shallow and much of the content of the book read like a dime store romance novel rather that what her readers have come to expect from such a talented writer. I am still an Anne fan, but this one I won't recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I'm a fan of Lamott's work, and even this novel her use of the language is at times beautiful and brilliant. However, I can't recall reading a book whose protagonist was less compelling. Mattie struck me as whiny, tedious, and meandering. I wasn't sure what, outside of herself and the ho-hum mystery about her father, she cared about. I would give it one star, but because I read it after The Lovely Bones, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and assuming the comparison did not help.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As an Anne Lamott fan, I was very disappointed in this book.Her earlier ones were better. There was no mounting tension to hold the story together, and the main characters were people I didn't respect or even like: professional victims with no compelling goals. The people were like cartoon-characters from AA or Born Again-types-preaching to the reader. This was a novel that needed a good editor and a longer gestation period.
Rating:
Summary: Cream for the Bowl
Review: OK, so I admit to feeling just a wee bit jealous of all the articulate individuals pouring cream into Anne's bowl of praise. I can't help but remember how much I loved "Rosie" when it first came out (and then went away for awhile before being brought back into print) followed shortly afterwards by an article (written by Anne) where she remembered being told by an acquaintance in a bar that they had hated it. I took it personally, I seethed with fuming, indignant resentment. I wanted to drop that ignorant, insensitive person on their ass in the street.
And how I didn't know until quite awhile later what had happened to Anne and her baby after her food critic article revealed a whole lot more than how delicately prepared the ahi ahi or what should really be done with braised mangos and salsa. I worried and fretted and wondered -- girl or boy, was she alone or in need or what?
It's like Anne and I and all the people that come alive in her work, that we come to know, imagined and actual, are somehow related, connected, family.
So I must confess, once again I wonder, am tinged with jealousy, and fret every day as the mail and/or ups person comes up the walk. Is she here? Is that you Anne? For though I haven't *actually read* "Blue Shoe" yet I find that I have already crawled between the pages like covers and feel warm, satisfied and blessed to know the people Anne will introduce me to. People I'll care about after I close the book and people I can't believe aren't real.
People you want to both smack in exasperation and hug with true affection.
SO I hope Anne's latest humanist, hilarious, heartbreaking and lovely work comes soon and until then I will feel relieved that the unappreciated author (at least by that one dolt) and sad food critic did so fantastically well and lived so happily.
Evermore, Annie.
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