Rating: 
Summary: Story-telling at its best!
Review: The unabridged audio production is a wonderful listening/reading experience. Do not bother trying to distinguish which is the predominant contribution, the author's enthralling story line and characters or the brilliant performance that makes these characters personal acquaintances. The book entertains while providing poignant insights into the human condition. The language brings vivid scenes and characters to life. A satisfying literary journey, whether you listen during your commutes to work or settle into your favorite reading chair. Enjoy this and then do your friends a favor by recommending it to them.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful!
Review: I have just finished "Eddie's Bastard."What a wonderful and poignant book!!!I just cannot believe that the author was only 28 when he wrote this.Can't wait to read the follow-up to "Eddie's Bastard."Keep up the good work,William.You have many,many years ahead to keep us entertained with your books!
Rating:
Summary: This should be an [best seller]!!
Review: This was one of the most engrossing books I've read in a long time. I don't understand why it's not a best seller and on [other lists]. The main character was engaging and real, even though horrible things were going on around him. He survived and helped other people survive. It's a book you won't be able to put down before midnight every night until you are finished with it.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing and wonderful
Review: I picked this up as a remainder at a used bookstore and I don't understand why it hasn't gotten more press. It was a wonderful story. It reminded me of a good Oprah's book club selection. I loved the characters and wanted to find out what was going to happen next. I wanted to eat a fried baloney sandwich with them. It's sometimes hard to like novels when bad things happen to characters that you like, but this had a good balance between bad things and good things. I also liked the way that it wrapped up in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Some mysteries
Review: I loved this book which I picked up at the library because I was intrigued by the title. It was hard to put it down once I started reading. There is a thread of mysteries running through the book which leaves one guessing until near the end. Eddie is a wonderful character - a boy learning to be a man in the Mann family. A quirky cast of other characters adds flavor to the tapestry of the story line.
Rating: 
Summary: Great setting but PC Sweet
Review: Most of this novel is charming. The backdop to the story pulls you in immediately. As does the story. The interest generated means you'll finish the book in a few sittings but, I feel, some elements left me shaking my head. Many of the characters are stereotypes, admittedly lovable stereotypes -yet they all seem familiar from some other tale. And everything has had a good sprinkling of sugar - espceially that most lovable, yet hard core alcoholic, neglectant guardian grandpa. And the lesbian Palestinian sisters raped by Israeli soldiers... please... But after the all complaining - glad I read it. A good read.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Probably one of the best books I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: a good read, but....
Review: a good read if a very ~ hmmmmmm ~ stagey one - a few too many orphan children, stereotypical larger than life german families living in pensilvania in 1980, brushes with the dark and seamy side of life and death only to have good triumph in unlikely easy ways... it's reviewed somewhere as being in the style of John Irving, whose books i've never read, and from reading this don't expect I'd much like to. a little too much, too forced, and neither complelling enough, nor insightful as it pretends to be.
Rating: 
Summary: a worthwhile read
Review: Left as a baby on his alcoholic grandfather's doorstep with a note reading only "Eddie's Bastard", young Billy Mann has an unusual life right from the get-go. As his mother has abandoned him and his father died in Vietnam, the majority of his youth is spent in virtual seclusion with his grandfather at the old family manor, visits from old doctor connor and spying on the neighbors his only outside diversions. When his grandfather has an accident, Billy is sent briefly to live in foster care and has his first brief taste of the outside world and his life begins to change in various ways. Great writing with many imaginative characters and events (the grandfather was financially ruined in the late 40s when he invested the family fortune in ostriches), this book is definitely worth reading. I greatly enjoyed the first 95% of this novel and raced my way to the end only to be mildly disappointed in the rather bland ending.
Rating:
Summary: A smashing debut
Review: Congratulations to Mr. Kowalski on a smashing debut. This is a wonderful story of a boy, who, in the process of becoming a man (er, should I say Mann?), faces the challenges of growing up in an unconventional single-parent family, and learns a great deal about his roots. I found the hero in this novel especially easy to connect with, and I can't wait to read the sequel.
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