Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This book is great. And what I love so much is that the movie is just as good. This book is moving, brilliantly worded and it changed my thoughts on everything around me. It was a fantastic read and I'm sure you'll enjoy it as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Highlights are too modern
Review: The modernization of Woolf's life in this book is a little too unrealistic and fabricated. The novel is filled with too much modern day nonsense to be taken seriously. The dark, moody, sombre tone of the book is depressing. One feels as though they have taken a ride on the 'dark side' with Cunningham as the author. Better to read a biography about Virginia Woolf!
Rating:
Summary: Minuteman.
Review: Just cause you won a Pulitzer Prize don't mean you can lay down heavy pipe in your old lady's aqueduct for hours and hours without missing a beat. Respect yourself.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!
Review: I have always enjoyed Virginia Wolf and her novel Mrs. Dalloway but The Hours blows me out of the water. It is powerful. The character who has aids and throws himself out of the window at the end as he describes what it's like living only for his friend, the hours that pass, the misery is so overwhelming. The way the characters run together through time, this author explores Virginia's non linear style of telling a story that she made so famous very handsomely, bringing in a vibrancy that makes it thrilling and fresh. A must have.
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Summary: See the movie
Review: This is one of the very few time I can say -- skip the book and see the movie! I hated the book because it was contrived, badly plagurized and difficult to read.
Rating: 
Summary: BRILLIANT BOOK
Review: THIS IS A BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN STORY I COULDN'T PUT DOWN. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE MOVIE.
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Summary: Bait and Switch
Review: No, I haven't read Virginia Woolfe. Why should I have to? Michael Cunningham's book should stand on it's own, and for me it doesn't. I was suckered by the old Hollywood bait and switch when I bought the book, The Hours. Michael Conningham's book is a Pulitzer Prize winner after all. And the movie has recieved high praise from Hollywood. Oh, I forgot...from Hollywood. What was I thinking. I could just be imagining this, but I think book and movie promoters alike realize that the majority of people would not by choice choose a book or movie with a strong homosexual theme; therefore, to get us to lay out the money they talk it up big and keep the wool pulled over our eyes long enough for us to buy the book or the movie ticket... These agenda propagators must feel it is their duty to enlighten us (about what I don't know), but I feel more like I am having something shoved down my throat. Hey, what ever happened to free choice...before I pay the money? No, that's too much to ask...they would loose too much money and have to start promoting books and movies that people would choose because they were attracted to the subject matter. Also, I was wearied by the lesbian kiss theme running through the book...it was a metaphor for what?...a lesbian kiss, weak. If a woman is insecure about something according to Michael you have a lesbian kiss and are redeemed somehow, no, sorry Michael. If he wanted to develope a homosexual theme he should have spent more time on Richard. I wanted to understand his suffering more...find out if he had any regrets.(i.e. Tom Hanks in Philadelphia...yes, I saw it. But the promoters were upfront about that one; weren't they?) Or maybe he could have explained more about why he didn't pursue Clarissa. Or he could have explored further what kept Richard and Clarissa so close after all the years that had passed. However, I will say he was on to something with the cake metaphor and the relationship between Laura Brown and her little boy, Richie. (I was touched by Laura and Richie's relationship.) So to sum it up folks if you write an agenda book now days you can get a Pulitzer and be automatically put on Hollywoods "A" list and have your book made into a movie. I wish I had spent my money on Virginia Woolfe.
Rating:
Summary: A must read...
Review: I decided to read the book before seeing the movie...at first it was difficult to get into. The long, descriptive sentence structure took some time to get used to - however within a few pages these sentences become poetic and melodic. As I read the book, I pictured Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore as the main characters. The story is wonderfully moving, thought provoking and so insightful. I loved how one chapter is devoted to each of the main characters - shifting from Virgina Woolf, to Mrs Brown and then to Mrs. Dalloway. Cunningham is able to write in such a way that the transition from one character and time period to the next is seamless. The ending (and I won't give it away as others have) is such a shock and so moving. I can't wait to see the movie - however I don't think the movie can begin to do justice to this masterpiece of literature.
I highly recommend the book!
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre copy
Review: I saw the movie "The Hours" and loved it!!! I thought I just had to read the book. I purchased both "Mrs. Dalloway" and "The Hours", knowing "The Hours" was inspired by "Mrs. Dalloway". Read "Mrs. Dalloway" (for the first time) and was greatly moved by how Virginia Woolfe could show you how much really takes place in one day, how much interactions and thoughts in one day can really change your life. It is a very poignant book. Then I read "The Hours" and I was disgusted by it. I knew from the movie that the author intentionally was trying to draw similarities between Clarissa Vaughan and Clarissa Dalloway, but in the book he went too far. He basically copied Virginia Woolfe's work and it is a mediocre copy. I agree with Michelle McSweeney's review that he made a "cover" of literture. He just updated situations from 1920's life to 1990's life. Clarissa Vaughan encounters almost the exact same situations as Clarissa Dalloway, such as being insulted because she was not invited to a lunch and both having an 18-year old daughter that is being drawn away from her. In some sections of the book it feels like Michael Cunningham comes very close to plagiarizing Woolfe's book. I find "The Hours" insulting to Virginia Woolfe's work especially since he won awards for copying it. I feel so disgusted by this that it is hard to enjoy the rest of the book, the only part that is supposedly original.My advice, if you actually want to enjoy reading "The Hours" do not read "Mrs. Dalloway" (especially not first), otherwise you will be as disappointed as I am.
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Summary: intricate layers that gently reveal themselves....
Review: The Hours is a novel about three women whose lives share a common thread. That thread is the novel Mrs. Dalloway. One women is Virginia Woolf, the author of Mrs. Dalloway. Her story seems very loosely based (with much literary license) on the facts of Virginia Woolf's life. Then there is Clarissa Vaughan, a modern version of Mrs. Dalloway, who is nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by a friend of hers at a young age. Like the Woolf character of Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughan is also preparing to give a party. The third woman is Mrs. Brown, who is coping with her life as best she can, as she reads the novel, Mrs. Dalloway in her spare and stolen moments. This is a story that seems to dance between these three women, with the novel as the dance partner they all share at different moments. I read this two years ago and totally disliked it. This time I read Mrs. Dalloway first (although I feel that a novel should preferably stand on it's own feet)to try to gain an understanding of the style and meaning of this connecting link. I really gained a new appreciation for this novel and the gentle intertwining of the lives of these three women that Michael Cunningham has crafted in the intricate style of Virginia Woolf's writings. The delicate link between these women is more than just depression and a novel named Mrs. Dalloway. This is a novel crafted of intricate layers that, in the final chapters, gently unwrap themselves to reveal the real person that intimately joins these three women together.
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