Rating: 
Summary: What's with the critics? Are they out of their minds?
Review: Fraizer MIGHT HAVE done better had he written a cook book on road kill.
Rating:
Summary: Adds a New Dimension to the word BORING
Review: By the time I got two-thirds of the way through this book, I couldn't have cared less what happened to Inman and Ada. The story just goes nowhere. After each chapter, I'd put the book down and ask myself, "How on earth did this guy get this thing published?" It's an embarrassment what some publishers will stoop to. Don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Not "Killer Angels."
Review: Not a bad book - it just wasn't "Killer Angels," nor was it at all similar. No Civil War history. A disapointment to me. To it's credit - it did appear to capture the period though and the struggle for civilians.
Rating:
Summary: The lame epilogue spoiled the book for me.
Review: Cold Mountain fell apart at the end. The epilogue was sentimental twaddle, bathed in a "Waltons" family glow that didn't match anything Frazier had written up until then. Also, it is not wise to turn minor characters into major ones in the last 3 pages of a 356-page book. Up until the epilogue, I'd been happy enough with Cold Mountain; its slow pace didn't bother me, and Frazier seemed to have a real feeling for his subject. My only pre-epilogue objection was mild: I found myself thinking, as yet another character was cured of disease by an herbal treatment, of the Pauline Kael line about how she personally believed in the efficacy of some herbal treatments, but that she wished just once a movie character treated with them would kick off. (I think she was writing about "Witness.")
Rating: 
Summary: A beautifully crafted book
Review: This novel is not written. It is crafted. The images it provokes become so real that the reader can taste them. It is a story of simple honesty and decency in a world gone mad.
Rating: 
Summary: an odyssey worthy of Homer
Review: Although I had heard both good and bad about this book, I was determined to read it and am glad I did. It was two books for the price of one--Ada's story and Inman's. Frazier is quite the wordsmith--the sentence on page 175 about the stars gathering in congress and agreeing to flee is a very provocative way of saying just how desperate and cruel the times were.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the reading, even factoring in the hype.
Review: Apparently I missed all the hype about Cold Mountain. It just seemed like a good read; it was excellent. The author clearly wrote what he knew, and the result is a transporting novel that brought to life the ravages of the Civil War. He wrote with a beautiful eye for detail, the poetic phrase, and a subtlety rarely seen today. I especially appreciated the author's refusal to put a 20th century gloss on last century's events and his using understatement to phenomenal effect. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: I guess UofM did not prepare me for fine lit
Review: This book is slow and boring. The characters are not interesting and the story is slow. I wouldn't have finished it if I wouldn't have started skimming.
Rating:
Summary: get to the point
Review: I watched this novel spend weeks and weeks on the best seller list and thought that this had to be an amazing story. Granted, the symbolism was extraordinary. However, i thought there was too much of it. If it wasn't for all the sex this would end up being one of the dry "literature" that high school students are forced to read in school and the very reason why they don't like literature. All in all, I was very disappointed in this book. I spent a lot of time reading it and hurried to do so only so that i could finish it and move onto a more enlightening novel. Waste of my valuable time.....
Rating:
Summary: This is a remarkable book destined to become a classic.
Review: I found this to be an amazing book with some of the most beautiful prose in the English language. I can't remember when before I actually felt I needed to consult the dictionary several times while reading a book because several words were unfamiliar to me. While that doesn't make a book good, I think it shows an admirable command of the language. It's a haunting and powerful story that can be read as two people's journeys to their dream. Ada learns how to take care of herself in the world and how to live and work within the natural rhythms of that world. Inman was raised to be self-reliant. BothAda and Inman learn that it is a bad thing to be without love and alone too long in a cruel world, because it can distrurb your mind. The book, in addition to its beautiful prose and symbolism,is bound to become a classic for its treatment of issues that remain valid to readers in our "highly civilized" times, such as self reliance, a desire to return to the purity of "nature" and the natural ways of doing things, and the difference between being able to take care of yourself and wanting someone in your life for who they are and what they can teach or have taught you. I also liked this book so well that I have decided to give it as gift to someone.
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