Rating: 
Summary: Deserves more stars than I can give it
Review: I saw the movie when it came out, and loved it. I had read Michael Cunningham's two other books, and thought they were both wonderful, but it took me a while to get around to reading the Hours. I'm so glad I did.
"The Hours" is a on the surface a story about the three women from diffrent time periods, each story over the course of one day. There's Virginia Woolf, writing Mrs. Dalloway, Laura Brown, a suicidal '50s housewife, and a modern day Mrs. Dalloway, buying flowers for a party in honor of a dying friend. The storys all come together by the end of the book, but even from the begining, they are connected through subtle usages of themes and imagery. It says things about life and death that will ring true to everyone. This book is a wonder.
Also, I would like to add that I've never read anything by Virginia Woolf (although this book makes me want to), and I still loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Twelve stars. I went gaga over this book
Review: ...and I'm almost never the ga-ga type. But The Hours took my breath away with its complexity, its interweaving of plots and time frames and the involvement of V. Woolf's (her writing and her own story) - all brought to modern times in twists and turns of writing that just, well, made me ga-ga, completely entranced. Several story lines are interwoven: Mrs. Dalloway (the book and its characters), Virginia Woolf's own life, the story of Laura Brown, a depressed and suicidal 1950's housewife, and Clarissa Vaughan's preparations for a party for her dying gay friend, who has nicknamed her Mrs. Dalloway.
Reading The Hours sent me on a quest to understand more about Virginia Woolf. I'd read Mrs. Dalloway years ago and found it hard going. But this time I read it slowly, savoring the long interior passages. And I've seen the movie. And I've read Quentin Bell's (Woolf's nephew) books about her and the whole Bloomsbury Set. I can't get enough and keep digging deeper and deeper.
Cunningham has spawned a whole new genre with this stellar piece of writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Provides an understanding of Mrs. Dalloway
Review: First, I saw the movie that was based on this book a year ago, and walked out not knowing if I liked or disliked it. In speaking to a friend of mine, she suggested I read "Mrs. Dalloway" and then read "The Hours." Her suggestion was I would get the best understanding from both this book and the movie. She was absolutely correct!Unlike some of the other reviewers, I felt as though Michael Cunningham had a deep admiration for Virginia Woolf and her work. Yes, almost all of the characters in "The Hours" are lifted from the pages of "Mrs. Dalloway." However, Mr. Cunningham makes these characters interesting and alive and people I would like to know. He writes in an organized fashion, as compared to Mrs. Woolf's stream of consciousness gibberish. The characters seem to have more depth, curiously, than the ones they are based on. They are easier to understand and sympathize with. I would highly recommend this book, but I would equally recommend reading "Mrs. Dalloway" first. My own perception of "Mrs. Dalloway" was that it was duller than dull, but it does provide the basis for the characters the Mr. Cunningham brings to life and makes their stories easier to understand. I suppose one could read this book without reading "Mrs. Dalloway" but I would find that difficult, personally. The one facet that Mr. Cunningham brings up that I either missed or was too bored with "Mrs. Dalloway" to pick up is the passage of the hours and their impact on the people in this book. It was obvious to me that Mr. Cunningham not only appreciated "Mrs. Dallowy" but he seemed to have an understanding of what VW was attempting to tell her readers and failed at. Here, he has succeeded. If you are a Virginia Woolf fan or purist, you will probably not appreciate Mr. Cunningham's attempt at incorporating her characters into this story. However, if you like stories that have characters that are alive and are people you can relate to, this story will like hold your interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not very original.
Review: I can't share the excitement over this book. It just didn't live up to its press. And didn't anyone catch the references to Doris Lessing's story, To Room Nineteen? About a woman who must rent a motel room to have some time alone. You see, this book is well enough written, hence the three stars, but so unoriginal it's discouraging how much people have applauded it. I do think the author has a great novel in him somewhere. It's just not this one. He needs to let go of his literary diva worship and take the plunge into originality. I know... he's laughing all the way to the bank, but that's my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: AN AUDIO WORTHY OF ACCOLADES
Review: From an acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and an award winning film of the same name comes an audio book also worthy of accolades. Author Michael Cunningham gives an empathetic, moving reading to his story, a tribute to Virginia Woolf. He pays homage to the late author by interweaving her life with those of two other women. Past and present unite to form a pallette of hope, courage, and love. Listeners find Virginia Woolf in 1923; she is recuperating in London and "Mrs. Dalloway" is in an embryonic stage. Seque to a sunshine filled morning in New York City where Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for a dear friend who is in the late stages of AIDS. Move to a Los Angeles suburb in the 1950s and Laura Brown who is attempting a celebration of her husband's birthday. It is a tribute to the author's proficiency and understanding that the lives of these women mesh with one another in unforgettable ways. An audio to he heard over and over again. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: It will leave you speechless!
Review: "The Hours : A Novel" is truly a mesmerizing and emotional story. The movie does not do it justice, and I enjoyed the movie. The characters are intriguing and I just wanted to sit down and talk with each one of them and perhaps live a day within their life. This literary work is a true page turner and is full of depth. A fantastic read - I recommend!
Rating: 
Summary: dont waste your time on this book
Review: I started to read this book with great expectations. It received many good reviews and was a best seller. the first few pages were fine. The story seemed to be heading somewhere. But as i continued reading the story became much too boring and pointless. What is the bottom line of the story? I feel that reading this book was nothing but a waste of time. It is the worst book i've read in years.
Do yourself a favour-don't read it!
Rating:
Summary: Do yourself a favor - read this book + Mrs Dalloway!
Review: I'd tried Virginia Woolf several times, but bogged down (I'm not alone in this, I suspect). Then the film, "The Hours", moved me to try again . . . I have just finished reading (in this order) Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's "The Hours." DO YOURSELF THIS FAVOR! You'll become acutely aware of the skilful interweaving of themes . . . Clarissa and the other characters take on deeper facets . . . details that may have tired you, or slipped by, in Woolf will take on new shape and meaning. And above all, the language . . . I'm not going to go into plot, characterization, symbolism, etc. -- When you're dealing with a classic, such things are readily available, and I'm not a scholar of English literature. Suffice to say, I have come from this reading experience feeling refreshed and renewed -- and enormously impressed. A great way to enter a hectic season. (Why not give the two books as a gift?)
Rating:
Summary: "A work of art"
Review: The way this novel is set up and told is genius in itself. Describing and telling the story of three diferent women in different time periods all going through self issues. the way Michael Cunningham tells the story with using real life situations and the characters all being connected is brilliant. This keeps you involved and makes you keep reading to try to find out what the truth is behind each woman. Even though this book is a fiction novel it has semi-true things in it. Such as Virginia Woolf is shown in a day writing her famous novel Mrs. Dalloway. I would recommend both the book and the film to anyone. Every moment I spent reading it was no waste. This is a book that makes you question things and that to me is a good and interesting book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A neatly constructed mediocrity
Review: I really don't understand why this book is so popular. Cunningham, instead of putting together three stories that play off each other, offers obvious parallels - carefully placed but without any life behind them, the work of a decent craftsman and not an artist - with a twist that kept me guessing for exactly five pages. I remember reading a review that praised his impersonation of Virginia Woolf's style, but didn't seem to realize that perhaps Woolf's style was there for a reason, that it was the only way to animate the material that she wanted to write about. Cunningham is merely aping, and for no particular reason other than the fact that he decided that one of the three stories should be about Virginia Woolf-and then, lamely, had one of the characters reading Mrs. Dalloway and another named Clarissa. Woolf's suicide, incidentally, came many years (and books) after Mrs. Dalloway-and is not connected to it in the way that Cunningham implies, and only because the commonplace association exists between the madness of the soldier in Mrs. Dalloway and Woolf's recurrent mental health problems. Placing these stories together offers nothing but surface understanding. No novel that has receiving so much praise recently is less worth rereading. The only reason this book needs to exist is to bring people to Mrs. Dalloway and, even better, To the Lighthouse. Otherwise, it is just a bunch of wax sculptures with some pretty parts. I don't think that Cunningham, incidentally, is a writer who should be a novelist. He is better at illuminating small moments -- exploring types vividly, for a few pages -- than creating characters that have sustained life. His short stories are actually very good: this book is just very average.
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