Rating: 
Summary: Waste of Time
Review: I began this book with hopeful anticipation but it wasn't too long before I considered abandoning Mitchard's 500+ page book. Finally, it was all just too much nonsense as just about every sub-plot in noveldom was dragged into the story. I suppose True, the main character, and Hank, the "younger" man exist somewhere, but I don't want to know them. Or even care about them. It's rare that I don't finish a book but midway through (why did I read that far?) I skipped to the last chapter and realized I'd wasted far too much time. A huge disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointment from favorite author
Review: I have loved Mitchard's other books-Deep End of the Ocean, Most Wanted and Theory of Relativity. I anxiously awaited this book and was so disappointed. I couldn't get beyond 75 pages, and that was difficult. I gave to my mother as she likes "romantic fluff" and she got through 100 pages, but couldn't go any further. It seemed like Mitchard was trying to write like a, let's say Marion Keyes-funny, but with a serious topic. I hope Ms. Mitchard goes back to her wonderful dramatic writing as this is not a path for her to go. It was almost a spoof of romance-type books, but not even good enough at that. I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the writing. Then I just couldn't take it anymore. I had the same thought as another reviewer--I can't imagine an editor, friend or anyone reading this book and not being truthful. Let alone a publisher publishing it!!
Rating:
Summary: YUCK!
Review: I have to agree with most of the previous reviews. This one is a disappointing, incredibly long read that I plodded through without much enthusiasm. The heroine, True, is a very immature woman who is impossible to like. She continues to do incredibly self-destructive things, is a lousy mother to her so-called beloved son, and doesn't listen to a word anyone says. She's condescending to everyone - including the medical professionals who saved her son's life. Her so-called beloved, Hank, is equally a jerk. But I didn't need 500 pages to find out that they deserve each other. Even the minor characters were neither interesting nor likeable. I have found Mitchard in the past, for example in her first book, to show a great insight into the issues and "voice" of adolescence - but I'm not sure she hits the mark with Guy - a pretty obnoxious kid. The adults in this story seem hell bent on [messing] him up as much as possible - his self-obsessed mother ignores his medical symptoms, slaps him across the face when he's in the hospital, talks about washing his mouth out with soap for swearing, and obviously emotionally drags him through hell and back during her ambivalent new marriage. It's hard to like a heroine who supposedly is motherhood personified when she's such a jerk. Finally, I don't understand this author's obsession with sexual issues and body fluids. Much more information than I need to know - for example - who wants to hear about a 10 year old boy's balls flapping as he runs down the stairs? Come on!
Rating: 
Summary: Not Quite Blessed
Review: Better than The Most Wanted, not as good as Deep End or A Theory of Relativity. I so want her books to be good, but am again disappointed. Way too many characters (reflective of the author's personal life, I presume) and way too many swear words.
I'm not a prude, but I can't share this book with my mother!
Rating:
Summary: good idea that went awry
Review: Nobody -- or no editor -- put the brakes on this thing. Basically, there's too much of everything. Too much repetitive dialogue, too many pages, too much domestic life under a microscope and not enough plot, not enough motivation for characters, and while we're at it, a bit too much cutesy. Mitchard has personally been there done that (marrying a younger man), and it seems the reader is mostly just privvy to 500-plus pages of what that experience is like.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointing book
Review: I thought this book had such promise and I kept reading, but it was just mediocre. Mitchard tried too hard to develop a conflict that just didn't make sense. How absurd that two grown people would keep misunderstanding each other. But I did think her sex scenes were pretty good or did she use the word "shaft" - I think so and I hate that. If she's going to write graphically about sex, then call it what it is.
Rating:
Summary: Some parts are quite clever, but it gets old quickly
Review: I bought this book on a whim, having seen an interview with the author on the Today Show when I was on vacation and on the lookout for a light read. There were some nice segments, but on the whole, it seemed somewhat self-indulgent on the author's part. My favorite part was the feeling in the beginning of the book that you were "inside their heads", but these explanations appeared to grow longer as we became more familiar with the characters rather than the reverse. It was like being with someone who loves the sound of their own voice--you may keep listening, but part of you tunes out.Having labored through the second half, with little additional (or unexpected) development, I wish I had skipped the last 200 pages and just read the last chapter. I didn't even give this one to the resale shop.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: This book is one step above pulp fiction. I finished it but only to find out what happened, not because the characters were emotionally compelling. They are a bore and really immature tedious adults. There are endless conversations in which nothing very important or interesting is said. The plot is similar to a Harlequin romance: rich woman meets sexy man, they marry, they have some arguments, the "villain" prevents them sorting out their differences and misunderstandings, they find out about the villain's part in keeping them apart, they make up and live happily ever after....
Rating: 
Summary: A well-paced story that is both believable and likeable
Review: In a recent appearance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, syndicated columnist and novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard maintained that her newest book, TWELVE TIMES BLESSED, is one that men need not be afraid of. The comment got a laugh from the large, almost entirely female audience. After all, TWELVE TIMES BLESSED has all the ingredients of a standard "woman's book." A successful woman, True Dickinson, flirts with an attractive man on her birthday, only to be rescued from death by exposure by the same hunky fellow after her car swerves off the road on her way home. A disastrous date later, True discovers that this is true love and the proverbial bodice-ripping begins. There is love, there is fighting, there is separation, there is tentative but hopeful reconciliation. It is, of course, a familiar formula. But acknowledging that a book is formulaic is not the same as criticizing the book. After all, as readers of genre fiction know, it's not whether you use the formula, but how you use the formula that counts. And Mitchard's gifts for characterization, humor and pacing elevate TWELVE TIMES BLESSED out of the murky waters of most formula fiction. While True and her beloved, a younger and somewhat wilder man named Hank, are both well drawn, Mitchard does much of her best character work with less central figures, including True's mother, a woman who expresses her displeasure with her daughter's romantic choices in myriad awful ways. True's son, Guy, is also compelling, as Mitchard does a fine job capturing the rapidly shifting emotions and behavior of a 10-year-old boy caught between childhood and adolescence. Guy's struggles are often poignant, but his antics also provide much of the book's gentle humor. Though the book is fairly lengthy, checking in at over 500 pages, Mitchard moves her story along (sometimes even a bit too quickly) as True and Hank encounter a variety of challenges, ranging from the trivial to the tragic. The occasional clunky sentence (sometimes involving confusion over the use of the word/name "True" at the beginning of a sentence) slows things down a bit from time to time but, on the whole, Mitchard tells a well-paced story and deftly assures that the reader will root for her two lovers from beginning to end. Mitchard was right to tell her audience that men need not be afraid of TWELVE TIMES BLESSED. Though told from True's perspective throughout, the book's portrayal of Hank is well done. He is neither wholly a knight-in-shining-armor, nor wholly a rouge. As a result, he is both believable and likeable, as is the novel as a whole. --- Reviewed by Rob Cline
Rating:
Summary: A very Disappointing Book
Review: I found this book to be very disappointing. The main characters are too much. Too effortlessly beautiful, rich, sexy, blah, blah, blah. As a reader, I didn't even care for them, much less what happened to them. I am an avid fan of Ms. Mitchard's past work and the weekly newspaper column she writes. She could do much better. I would not recommend this book.
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