A Thousand Acres

Rating:
Summary: Waste of time, boring
Review: Forced to read it for school. I couldn't make 5 pages a night before I fell asleep. Probably better for the females, especially soap opera watchers, but overall boring, and I'm so tired of reading descriptions of these Midwest Rednecks and their tractors!

Rating:
Summary: Turtles start slow, but win the race.
Review: A man in another review said the book starts slow, but finishes strong; I say the book is consistent throughout, but especially picks up near the end. A good book to make you think, and the whole molestation deal leaves the reader to their own interpretation. Five stars and two thumbs up!

Rating:
Summary: Read if you love lots of description...
Review: Smiley did a wonderful job with her descriptions here, but the characters were not necessarily believable at times and were often very flat and irrational. It's hard to believe that a nice farmwife will suddenly stoop to adultery and attempted murder. The novel is very surprising; this is true. The whole plot seems to turn on one word. This is good. It does not, however, make a novel great.

Rating:
Summary: Ho-HUMMM
Review: I wouldn't know where to begin. I don't want to recommend this book to anyone. The narrative is tedious. The characters uninteresting. I can't imagine why anyone would pick up this novel for casual reading. It'll be time spent that you will never get back!!!!

Rating:
Summary: good beginning, weak ending
Review: Disappointed to find out that the "King Lear" comparison to this book turned out to be a misleading one. The book can stand pretty well on its own, without leading us to expect some sort of patricide in the end. Smiley's a great writer, no one could rival her descriptions of the midwest, but for those of us who don't enjoy reading massive amounts of landscape description, it can get a little boring at times.

Rating:
Summary: I'm so glad I finally read this book!
Review: I wanted to read King Lear first but never quite got around to it. A Thousand Acres is my first experience with Jane Smiley's writing. The descriptions of places and characters were so revealing I found myself re reading portions of the book. I was truly amazed at the power of her words. This is not a happy story but I felt that the family dynamics did portray real situations. I am looking forward to reading the three other books I own by this author.

Rating:
Summary: A depressing, non-believable book.
Review: If you can make it past the first half of the book without putting it down from boredom, you will surely be exasperated by the way the linear charecters are portrayed as their lives are torn apart. Smiley attempts to breed a kinship with the main charecter, who is a spineless woman who lives her entire life on a rural farm in Iowa, commiting adultery and annoying the reader. Men are displayed as one-track-minded beings which exist only to further their own desires in the book. I couldn't believe the notion that a couple which had, as stated in the beginning of the book, coexisted so well for 15 years could be utterly torn so quickly by major charecter changes. I agree that people change, but I hardly can accept that all of Iowa does within one chapter, as shown in A Thousand Acres. As a student in High School, I've been subject to the masses of horrible books plauging our system that the powers-that-be have dictated are good for our young minds. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm an avid reader, and pass time now and then with a good book. A Thousand Acres was not. Why A Thousand Acres won the pulitzer prize is truly beyond me, as whatever universal truth there was that applied to us all was overshadowed by tedious descriptions of farm life and unbelievable plot changes. People need to read this book like they need a hole in the head. You have been warned.

Rating:
Summary: Sublime!
Review: This book manages to be powerful without being melodramatic. In the light of the dramatic events of the story, the character development is subtle and honest. I was dismayed to see how many people thought it was boring. Granted, it's not constant, break-neck action, but it certainly moves along at a clip without wasting a single word. The immense details, everything from the unchangin Iowa landscape to the small quirks of the characters plays a part in the tale. I thought it was imaginative,well-developed, and an excellent take on the classic Shakespearean themes it tackled, a wonderful example of how there really are no new stories, just new tellings. My only complaints have to do with some of the conflicting details and careless mistakes on Smiley's part. In one scene the character is fixing a vacuum cleaner, and two lines later she's wiping suds from her hands. In a novel where every detail is so important, the careless errors really stand out. Otherwise, I adored it. And to the reviewer who complained about none of the male characters being likeable, I must disagree. Everyone in the novel is flawed and human, likeable and reprehensible. That's the beauty of this book.

Rating:
Summary: I wish I would have started a different book.
Review: Frustrating. Today, I finished this book after beginning it almost nine-months ago. I remember enjoying the beginning of the novel and, as such, felt compelled to finish. I enjoyed the writing but disliked the plot line and the character interactions. I imagine the movie, based on plot lines and character interactions, is a flop. Moo and Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) are better books. I may have enjoyed this more if I had considered the King Lear connections, while reading the book.

Rating:
Summary: Tried my best to enjoy it
Review: A classic example of what is wrong with modern literature. What starts as an interesting premise (King Lear set in Iowa -family turmoil, etc.) ends up being a patchwork of Opra Winfrey and Jerry Springer episodes, combined with extensive descriptions of farming. If Smiley wanted us to hate the male characters, she succeeds brilliantly, from the alchoholic molesting father to the hippie loser boyfriend who is painfully one-dimensional. A depressing waste of time and energy that has been adopted as a college standard. Read Smiley's Greenlanders instead.