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Rating: 
Summary: Marvellous!
Review: "Babycakes" is one of the most touching novels in the "Tales of the City" series as it marks the end of the seemingly fun-filled pre-AIDS era, and the beginning of death, despair and tragedy. It's deliciously comic whilst at the same time having essences of profound sadness on every page. Freud would have a field day analysing the symbolic significance of the endless rain that drones on throughout most of the book. More sombre and more political than his first three novels Babycakes is firmly planted in the period of the very early eighties. Maupin is a topical writer and seems to draw influence from his immediate surroundings and the time in which he lives. Although almost twenty years have passed since the early 80s the relevance and importance of his subject matter remains undiminished by time.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: After reading and loving the first 3 "Tales of the City" books, I couldn't wait to read this book. What a terrible shame - I started to hate characters that I'd fallen in love with, and had considered them my extended fictional family. I just hope this isn't made into a movie too, or even more fans will be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: My second-favorite in the series
Review: Further Tales went a little too far into the absurd. Babycakes is MUCH better in this regard. Strange things happen, but it's not entirely impossible to suspend disbelief. And like More Tales (my favorite of the series), Babycakes deals sensitively with a number of controversial issues. I was particularly impressed that (unlike some gay authors) Maupin shows the same sensitivity to and in-depth look at the problems his heterosexual characters face (i.e. Brian's infertility) as the problems of his gay characters. I was a bit upset by the off-stage death of a major character in the series from AIDS, but Maupin write well about the affect the death had on his partner and the others who were close to him.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, quirky, diverse, magical Baghdad by the Bay
Review: The late, great SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen coined the term Baghdad by the Bay for the city that captured his heart, San Francisco. And Armisted Maupin peopled his Tales of the City series (first serialized in the Chronicle in 1976) with a huge assortment of eccentric, quirky, diverse characters that capture your heart and keep you reading, reading, reading even when you know you should have turned off the light hours ago. Babycakes, in which ambitious Mary Ann (the wide-eyed innocent from the Midwest through whose eyes we earlier came to see an ingenue's view of live and love in the City) has a baby, was the first work of fiction to recognize the scourge of AIDS in SF.
Drop dead funny, bittersweet, and enchanting, Babycakes dangles intricate and outrageously interwoven plot threads in front of the readers, and it all just makes you want more, more, more.
Rating: 
Summary: Another good read from Maupin
Review: Yet another series of adventures for the delightful characters that populate Maupin's books, this time with a bittersweet twist: the reality of AIDS. Because Maupin's Tales of the City books are generally so lighthearted, zany and playful, when the story opens with Michael mourning his lover, it hits pretty hard. Despite the slight bittersweetness, this installment of the series features all of Maupin's signature flourishes and his wonderful sense of humor. If your looking for light, breezy stories and likable characters you couldn't find anywhere but San Francisco, then buy this series of books and get started reading. You'll quickly get addicted. For those of you San Franciscans past and present who've never read Maupin, he's worth a look. If nothing else his books will make you remember why San Francisco was once such an interesting and fun place to live and what's sorely missing from it today!
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