Cradle and All

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Summary: two births
Review: A story of two births that have a pretty good suspenseful ending. Religious skepticism is always a good thing to read about when mixed with with real facts. This was a good book.

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Summary: Typical Patterson Entertainment!
Review: As you may or may not know, Cradle And All is a rework of Patterson's 2nd novel called Virgin. Most likely if you read Virgin within the past few years and remember the ending you probably won't want to read Cradle And All -- even though there are differences between the two versions. But if you haven't read Virgin or read it like I did(when it first came out in 1980)and don't remember the outcome, you're in for a real treat. After reading an advance reader copy of Cradle And All, I'm sure that most Patterson fans will find many of the qualities that have made them devour his previous books. In typical Patterson fashion the plot moves along at a break-neck pace, the chapters are very brief with each ending on a note that makes you want to quickly turn the page, and the characters--while not developed in great depth--are interesting. While I'm not a particularly fast reader, I read this book in two days. Be prepared to be glued to your favorite reading place until you finish Cradle And All! You'll definitely enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Patterson writes books for the retarded and cradle proves it
Review: Don't get me wrong. I used to love the James Patterson books when I was a kid since the two-page-length chapters kept my a.d.d like tendencies at drift. Unfortunately, Patterson has come up with a formula in all of his books and he refuses to deviate from it.
If the Patterson novel of choice does not deal with Alex Cross then you can expect the protagonist to be a buxom, romantically challenged female in her twenties to thirties whose dialogue consists of cliche. Then Patterson develops said protagonist by dropping a bunch of lame-ass product names into the protagonist's characterization.
When it comes to Cradle and All, one of the main characters, Kathleen Beavier, manages to describe what she is wearing in painful detail minutes before she arrives at an abortion clinic. Kathleen wears a Rolex Lady Datejust watch, washes her hair in Aveda shampoo, likes fatigue jackets, patterned skirts, and various Urban Outfitters apparel. At least Patterson hasn't sold out yet.
Another big problem I had with this problem is how women view themselves in this book. I know this is supposed to be a thriller and consequently character development takes backseat, but just listen to this. The protagonist in Cradle and All, Ann Fitzgerald, takes a bath right before her big investigation. Ok, so what's the big problem you're asking, right? This is how she describes herself when nude in front of the bathroom mirror and this is directly from the book: "I stared into the steamy pier glass, still awed, amazed, and amused that I'd emerged from my nun-y duckling feathers with what could pass as a model's body." Now I'm a guy and even I know that if you're a girl and you're not a completely conceited bitch, you notice about a million areas on your body you are totally insecure about. I mean what the hell??
I could go on and on but the fact is this is your typical formulaic Patterson tripe attempting to pass itself off as a credible novel. Let me just assure you that the surprise ending is no more surprising than the ends of all of his novels. If you have a speck of imagination you can pretty much figure out the ending halfway through. Read another Dan Brown book if you need to satiate that need for a popcorn novel.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I am not a James Patterson fan, but a friend was reading this book, and it sounded very interesting to me. I bought it, and loved it. It is the only book by him that I have ever cared to read, probably because it is so different from the rest of his work. I thought I had the book all figured out until the end. Those are the kind of books I love. This is one that you definetly do not want to read the end first, for it will ruin the whole book!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I've read practically every James Patterson novel, and this was certainly not his best. I love the Alex Cross series and most of his other works because they keep you guessing throughout the entire book. This novel, on the other hand, pretty much tells you the catch and simply repeats itself over and over from Part 2 until the ending. It was so messy that the act of reading it gradually became annoying. It is, however, a quick read (I finished it in less than a week) so even if it is a terrible novel, it doesn't waste too much of your time. By the way, the only reason that I give this book 2 stars and not 1 is because it did have a mildly ammusing epilogue.

Rating:
Summary: I liked it.
Review: In spite of what other reviewers have been saying about this book - I liked it.
It was not the typical Alex Cross detective novel. It is basically the battle between good and evil.
The ending was a nice little twist. Worth the time to read.


Rating:
Summary: cradel and all review by jason bookmaster zdon
Review: The cradel and all is an exellent book. It is a story about a beautiful blonde hair girl named Kathleen Beavier. She Is on the way to the docters office. But she finds out that she is pregnant but she has never slept with anyone. She was ether prude or just had old fashion morals but how could she be pregnant. Is it a sign from god? Kathy just seems to be a troubeld girl. In the beginning of the book when she is in the womens medical center is one of the creepist things i had ever read and i still get the goose bumps when i think about it. And There is this creepy soft voice that keeps messing with everyone in the book. Telling them to here themselves. Or to tell them how bad of person they are. Is it there concious? Our is it a supernatual form. Now another main character in the book is Anne fitzgeraid. She was a nun but she decided to be a private investagter. Anne was asked to go to los angelas to investagate the disease thats speading in los angelas and boston by one of her long time friends who is one of the cardinals in the cathlic church. So anne flys to los angelas and goes into the hospital to see nothing but kids in pain. They had a deasie like polio but none of the vacines were working on any of the kids. The same was happennig in boston and know one knows what is going on with this deasies.And in all of these cities people are dum founded by the epedemics, droughts, famine and floods. Hopefully youe take my edvice and read this book.Anne must find out what is going on with all this if she wants to save kathy. And herself. When you read this book you will be thinking is this a sign of good or evil. Or is the world going to end? Is the child inside of kathleen the devil or christ reborn to come and hurt or help us? Is anne going to figure out if whats going on maybe or maybe not. But i really enjoyed this book its one of the best books i've read and i really don't like to read my teacher said it was a good book so i gave it a shot and i enjoyed it. One other reason i really like this book is because very compelling and simple to follow. It is also a fast paces book and doesn't drag on it gets strat to the truth. The only thing that i didn't like about the book was how james jumped from character in the book. One thing people might obtain from this book is to appreciate life a little bit more. Because you don't know when life is going to throw you a curve ball when the four horsemen come for us. Thats if you belive in the bible. But i don't think this book is for anyone under the age of sixteen cause of the language and graphic ideas in the book.

Rating:
Summary: A quick read and retreat
Review: This book was a very quick read and page turner. Extremely ludicrous but suspensful. It provided a well deserved escape that I needed while attending to my terminally ill husband at the hospice.

Rating:
Summary: Bizzare! (2 1/2 stars)
Review: When you think of James Patterson, this is not the type of book that would come to mind. Basically it is an end of the world, apocalyptic type thriller. Two virgins are pregnant, one with the son of Christ and one with the son of Satan. Floods, famine, disease, etc. is spreading across the world and can only be stopped if the son of Satan is destroyed. Sound weird? Well it is. More of a Stephen King or Dean Koontz type of book, and they would likely do it better. In all honesty if it hadn't been written by Patterson, I may have not even read it.

It is relatively entertaining if you can stretch your imagination, and it is definitely fast paced: I finished it in one evening. However it really isn't that great of a book. First, there are way too many characters. The only character you can really feel anything for is Anne, because her story is told in the first person. As for the rest of the characters you feel so detached from them you really don't care what their fate will be. They aren't very well drawn out either past a surface level. The writing also isn't up to the quality that you expect from Patterson. Also, the ending is very cheesy. As well, the entire time I was reading I couldn't help but think of the Schwarzenegger movie 'End of Days' I was half expecting Arnie to appear in the book at any time saying "I vil stop ze Devil" There were also some glaring editing errors. One major one that comes to mind was the fact that early in the book Anne was "nearing thirty", and at the end she was 34 years old. Very rapid aging indeed. Perhaps it was due to the apocalyptic circumstances? Hmmm... I could go on with more errors but I digress. You just shouldn't see sloppy editing like that in a novel by a top author.

Overall, I would say that as a library book it was OK, but if I had paid money for it I would be disappointed. Patterson should stick with what he does best, and should also take a little more care in his writing.