Rating: 
Summary: Fugitive Pieces: A Novel?
Review: It's my friend's favorite book. That's why I read it. I forced myself through it. The prose is terrible. It's very choppy. The sentences are short. All the same length. Like this. Sometimes only fragments. Even the dialogue. People talk like this. It's unrealistic. It's painful to read.Get the point? I suppose it's natural for a poet-turned-novelist to be unfamiliar with the rythm of prose and the need for complete sentences of various lengths and constructions. I don't mean to suggest that all poets are unable to write prose; often times poets have a natural advantage, because they have practice choosing words precisely, or because they know how to express ideas in new and interesting yet convincing ways. However, if a poet chooses to write prose, she should write prose, not string together a thousand pretentious lines of poetry and call it a novel. To pass off poetry as prose is disrespectful to prose as an artform. If the author is so in love with poetry, she's welcome to go on writing it--but why attempt to branch out into a different artform if one is not willing to acknowledge any of the basic characteristics that make it a unique artform in the first place? There are other things wrong with this book, but there is no need to go over them since the book is unreadable anyway. Its other flaws just make it consistent: there's no need to be warned of them because if you can tolerate this prose you can tolerate anything.
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Summary: Struggle With this Book. You Are Supposed To!
Review: If you are looking for literal, linear prose, give this book a miss. Canadian writer Ann Michaels writes a novel that penetrates the surface of things as they are: a narrative that seems to point to the deepest core of all human longing and grief. While Michaels'novel does not offer a series of perfectly arranged plot sequences,it does something that is far superior; the story presents a spiritual revelation of sorts, about living and dying (about having lived and having died); one that will leave you staring into space, appropriately silent, shocked, moved-for days, maybe months. There are moments in her story that still make me weep openly, though I am not typically an emotional reader. Lyrical and poetic, and yes- Ondaatjesque, but better, Michaels takes us a step further than even beautiful language and immaculate fragments, to the delicate, opaque meanings behind gesture and memory. If truly exceptional writing is able to name truths we already recognize but cannot always name, Michaels does this repeatedly, flawlessly and I think, unpretentiously: "After years, at any moment, our bodies are ready to remember us." Already, my copy of the novel is carefully marked in countless places I want to remember, words and phrases that stopped me in my tracks: "Some stones are so heavy only silence helps you carry them." I am a 34 year old black man -an African immigrant living in Boston-and she spoke to me-very clearly. Buy this book only if you are ready for this kind of confrontation with beautiful, raw truth.
Rating: 
Summary: Overblown and Pretentious--What a Shame
Review: I loved the first section of the book, where Jakob grows up in Greece under the influence of Athos (who, by the way, is a marvellous character. But everything after that left me increasingly cold. I didn't have a problem with Jakob's obsession with his sister, but all the other tragic Holocaust details were hammered in with all the subtlty of an exploding volcano. Jakob lost my sympathy progressively as he whined and whimpered his way through the remainder of the book. Even more annoyingly, when Michaels switched narrators two thirds of the way through, she took the opportunity to have our new protagonist, Ben, gush over Jakob's poetic prose--which, of course, is the novel we've been reading up until this point. And how arrogant to name your perfect heroine Michaela if your own name is Michaels. I felt as though the author was patting herself on the back the entire time, and I couldn't see that the novel warranted the glowing accolades that have been heaped on it.
There were some really lovely sections, most notably those early scenes on Zakynthos, and I regained some interest when we met Ben's wife Naomi, who is another good character, but I spent most of the time fed up and irritated, and the book annoys me even more in hindsight than it did at the time.
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Summary: I couldn't finish it
Review: While this book may be well written and in general I enjoy historical fiction, I could not stomache this for some reason. There are so many true stories of the Nazi's atrocities that need to be told and read. For me, the real stories are so powerful that any attempt to fictionalize what happened to the Jewish people and others almost seems wrong.
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Summary: Powerfully Moving Poetry in Prose
Review: This book will be a classic. Anne Michaels has written the best book I have ever read! Read it!
It is amazing.
The diction, literary devises, etc. are wonderful. They do not distract from the deeply moving, thought-provoking story.
YOU MUST READ -- NO EXPERIENCE -- this book!
Rating:
Summary: Some Pasages Interesting, But Hard to Follow
Review: I found parts of this book quite interesting, especially the parts taking place in Greece. About two-thirds the way through, I suddenly found myself reading without the book making sense. I had to ask someone else who was reading the book at the same time, if she was as confused as I was. My friend explained that they had changed characters. I went back and re-read, but still found the trasition from one character's story to another very unclear. I felt annoyed and disappointed, as I had become involved in the first character's story, and I never did come to care about the second character. Overall, this book did have some interesting passages. But I'm afraid I personally found the book far too "literary" in style, and very confusing. I am a professional person with a Master's Degree, yet this book made me feel really stupid. I felt confused and lost as to what was happening, and it was a real struggle for me to finish the book after the author switched characters.
Rating:
Summary: beautiful, poignant, one of my favorites
Review: What a story and so beautifully written.
Very disturbing, very sad, but so beautiful,
in both it's content and it's writing style, a must read
Rating:
Summary: A 13 year-old's point of view
Review: The beginning of this book was greatly written, but throughout the rest of the book I was lost. It kept switching from different perspectives and to different times. There are better books that I think would be more easily understood about the Holocaust. I wouldn't suggest this book to many of my friends.
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Summary: Altering
Review: This is one of the most powerful books I've ever read. The power of her poetry, her words, is astounding. It was like waking from a dream...
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful prose, lousy novel
Review: Fugitive Pieces is filled with stunningly written prose that makes you stop and ponder. Although I appreciate the prose, the book lacks any type of plot, and the characters are so distant that I never grew to care about any of them.
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