Rating: 
Summary: Clever, satirical, but at times, somewhat disengaging.
Review: Jane Smiley is a gifted author, and Moo is a wonderful satire on university life. So many characters and sub-plots are woven into the text, however, that it's hard to follow (and care about) all of the various plots. Still, it's a good read, particularly if you're interested in academia
Rating: 
Summary: not impressed
Review: As others have mentioned "Moo" has an unwieldy cast of characters which make following each subplot difficult, as characters often fail to appear again for hundreds of pages. Though some characters are noteworthy - particular the pig Earl Butz and Smiley's grasp of adolescent dialogue is flawless, I wound up skimming until I reached the climax. Personally, I much prefer the author's less bulky books such as "Barn Blind" and "A Thousand Acres" not because I don't enjoy reading complexly plotted novels, but because I feel that if you have the knack of creating memorable characters, they deserve more "screen time" so to speak.
Rating: 
Summary: Gimme...Moo....re !
Review: Moo - in this book you get into the mind/heart of an obese hog, an obsessive hog breeder, a passionate horticulturalist, a narcisstic writer/professor, four college girls, a wily secretary....indeed the ensemble cast of Moo makes it its most entertaining point. Dont wait for climaxes or earth shattering finales, instead what you get and enjoy are gentle, entertaining portraits of the denizens of an agricultural college, going about their lives and politics and shenanigans with about as much aplomb as the neighbours next door. Great characterisations, funny too, relatable, and most of all a window, half opened into this blend of characters, and yes it includes a hog !
Rating: 
Summary: Moo U, how sweet...
Review: Watch out however, for midwesterners as Ms. Smiley says:
The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do-they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable.
Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are-they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence.
red state types love to cheat and intimidate, so we have to assume the worst and call them on it every time.
I think this author should start looking for material elsewhere.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2109218
Rating:
Summary: Finest kind, boy howdy
Review: Oh my gosh, what is the matter here? This book is a five-star jobby if ever there were one such! Wonderfully funny, fairly gentle satire of a second-rate, mid-western unversity with a big Ag department, a small English department with a creative writing section, and a very nice and very big pig. Utterly delightful. Smiley is, well, let's just say she's finest kind!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting....but no more,
Review: Moo was certainly an interesting read, but it fell far short of the "hilarious" label given to it by many. Smiley creates some fairly interesting (there's that word again) characters and does a decent job of together weaving several plot lines, but if you go in to this with great expectations then prepare to be disappointed.While Moo does hit a few softballs in satirizing the land grant university, there's not that much new here. One thing that Moo does accomplish (albeit unintentionally) is to provide an excellent example of the skewed sense of reality held by most who toil in academia. Why would this be unintentional? Because it is not the warped viewpoint of a character in the novel that is most interesting, but rather that of the author herself. The best satirical criticism here hits an unintended target.
Rating:
Summary: Take Notes
Review: Moo is an accurate and engrossing portrayal of the hierarchies of both faculty and students at a Midwestern university. However, while Smiley treats the reader to one of her most light-hearted novels, with devious love triangles and surprisingly earnest interspecies bonding, she inevitably creates an enigma of subplots that boggles the mind. With a little patience this is a rewarding read.
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