Rating: 
Summary: enjoyable
Review: I enjoyed this book thoroughly - it uses a delightful tone of voice that makes you take joy in the ordinariness and simplicity of life: of a garden, of a life-long craft. It is a splendidly crafted book in which Carol Shields shines as a writer.Shields says many things about life, society, and fulfillment in the process, but in the end, this story is simply about the life of an ordinary woman.
Rating: 
Summary: How can she know these things?
Review: Shields explores feelings you've never verbalized, describes locations you know in your heart, even if you've never seen them. She manages to capture several renditions of the same event -- with clarity. She explores the characters changing perceptions as they grow, or, as in some cases, regress. I found it difficult to put the book down.
Rating: 
Summary: Depressing waste of time
Review: The Stone Diaries is a rather uninteresting pseudo-autobiography of a woman whose mother died in childbirth. It seemed to me that the book was purposely sparse, so that the book club people who chose to read it would have an almost blank slate onto which they could superimpose their own impressions. To me, that's a contrived waste of time and money. I have no idea how this won the Pulitzer. I kept reading hoping for something, anything, to get out of Ms. Shields' book, but it was just depressing and dull. If you enjoy commiserating with an unhappy woman from cradle to grave, this just may be the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Ode To The Ordinary
Review: I don't know about you, but I am certain no one will every write a biography of my life. It's quite simple: nothing much ever happened to me worth writing about. And so it is with most folks. Yet when we pick up The Stone Diaries we read a fictional autobiography of a very ordinary woman that starts when Daisy Stone is comfortably in the womb, and finishes with her obituary. Daisy tells her tale in the third person, and uses documents, letters, and the commentary of others to flesh out the story of her unexceptional life... We really never get to know Daisy well. Her thoughts and emotions, her joys and sorrows lie hidden. Even when she becomes clinically depressed we never get any closer to her mind. To avoid sentimentality she frequently uses letters and the interview-like comments of others to tell the story. She is intelligent and educated, but what was that worth in the first half of the 20th century? Not much. She marries for security, dutifully raises her children, and, without joy, makes herself available in bed. She shows happiness when given a column to write in a newspaper, and that is perhaps her life's triumph. So what do we make of all of this? It is easy to see that born 40 years later Daisy would probably have been quite the achiever. She was born in 1905, however, and Carol Shields does a splendid job of presenting a person who was born, served time on the planet, and then departed, her mark being that she left three children who had more opportunities to develop their talents. This is a novel that may captivate many readers -after all it did win a Pulitzer Prize- or it may leave some dissatisfied. I found the book to be well written, and intriguing, yet Daisy was just too distant for me. You should read it, though. It's a modern classic.
Rating:
Summary: A Pseudo Autobiographical Fable?
Review: I am not exactly sure how to write an accurate description of what this book is or how it is written. But I AM sure that I liked it. This is the story of Daisy Goodwill Hoad Flett. From before her birth to after her death, we get to know her- or I should say- know ABOUT her- primarily through the eyes of other people. As a reader, you'll often be privvy to conversations of which Daisy was a part, but never read her dialogue. While the style of writing is disjointed, it is never distracting. You'll read letters, narratives, newspaper articles, and even see pictures. The mysterious thing about this "biography" is that it is difficult to tell who the biographer is. My guess is that it is Daisy- almost as though she has disassociated from her body and views her life entirely in the third person (except for a few isolated moments when she refers to herself in the first person). This does not make complete sense, though, because there are descriptions of some events which she could not know about. But at the same time, it could be Daisy's imagination. Imagination or not, I truly enjoyed reading the story of Daisy and her environment. It is a quick read that, while unconventional, is worth giving a chance.
Rating:
Summary: A Richly Moving Account of an Ordinary Life
Review: The Stone Diaries touched me so deeply that it is now my favorite book. It takes the life story of an "ordinary" woman and demonstrates the universality of us all as well as showing the uniqueness of our experiences. It touches on family and how well they know, or think they know, each other. To me, this book showed how precious each and every person is and how truly remarkable an ordinary life can be.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written, but a little depressing
Review: I liked this book, although I thought it was a little disjointed the way it kept jumping back and forth between narrators (is it Daisy who is writing or someone else?). However, it was pretty depressing. I'm not sure if I would recommend it to anyone else just because I didn't leave with a feeling that I had learned anything or been made better by reading it. It just seemed dreary and depressing. Left me with the feeling of "what's the point of it all?"
Rating:
Summary: What made this book interesting
Review: This book was interesting because Ms.Shields prose is intelligent and compelling reading.She also violates about every rule that your typical creative writing teacher preaches.That is very refreshing.Her best book was Swann.
Rating:
Summary: Inside A Woman
Review: Carol Shields does an excellent job of unlocking the mind, heart, and soul of the female with her book "The Stone Diaries." I believe that every woman will be able to relate to a character in the novel at least once. Shields focuses on the milestones of life (birth, childhood, love, marriage, motherhood, and death) and dissects them wonderfully.
In an amazingly accurate portrayal of the culture of the mid to late 1900s, Carol Shields takes you on an incredible journey of the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett, even allowing us the luxury of seeing her through the eyes of not only herself, but those around her. Her heartbreaking birth, contemporary childhood, tragic love life, typical "retirement," and uncertain death takes you on a constant roller coaster ride. It keeps you reading to see exactly how the next part of her life will unfold.
A truly believable story line and plot, complete with a family tree and pictures, made me very aware of the Stone legacy. I had to remind myself it was actually fiction. It successfully travels through four generations of women, each strugling with their own image, children, husbands, and life, facing obstacles of that time. It is a complete family history, and true to it's name, a "diary" following Mercy Stone Goodwill, her daughter (Daisy Goodwill Flett), granddaughters (Joan and Anne), and even the birth of her great grandchildren.
Although, I will admit that there are certain parts of the book that are questionable (like her adventures with Fraidy and Beans), ironic (such as her entire love life), and just plain laughable (the Flower Girls, for example), it was a good read overall. Something that must have taken time, patience, thought, and insight on the part of the author. I recommend it to anyone wanting to take a look inside a woman.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't even finish it.
Review: This is the worst book I have attempted to read in months! The first 100 pages or so I thought showed promise, but then shortly after, I did not care a bit about the characters! I gritted my teeth and tried to keep reading, but I just couldn't do it. I guess I just don't like these "written for a women's bookclub" books.
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