Rating: 
Summary: Renewal and Beauty
Review: The theme of renewal pervades this wonderful novel, which tells the story of a Confederate soldier walking across North Carolina from a hospital near Raleigh, to his home and his sweetheart on Cold Mountain in the far west of the state. The novel also tells the story of that sweetheart, Ada, and her struggle to maintain her family's farm. Frazier uses stories from his own family's history to spin a tale of renewal and rebirth: the renewal of a farm, the crushing and rebirth of a man's spirit, and ultimately the renewal and rebirth of a nation. Frazier's great triumph is his use of language. He bathes the reader in sensual images and evokes the simplicity, roughness, and cruelty of backwoods life before the age of technology. This book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in American history or who appreciates how beautiful the English language truly can be.
Rating: 
Summary: OVERHYPED AND BORING
Review: THIS IS A BOOK THAT I STARTED WITH ENTHUSIASM--WHICH I SOON LOST. I NEVER ACQUIRED THAT ENTHUSIASM AGAIN! NOT WORTH WASTING PRECIOUS TIME ON.
Rating: 
Summary: The book gave me a new point of wiew in my life
Review: The book was lent me by my English teacher, as something I must read to improve my English, but the story and the characters gave me a new point of wiew of my own life. This is a book far away from bore a reader! If you are able to go into the story with Inman, you will enjoy the trip toward home. He never reached it, but you'll find something more than only four walls...
Rating:
Summary: Most boring book I have ever read!
Review: A boring man having dreary adventures and meeting horrible people among the mountains. The only nice character is the woman who helps Ada run her farm, but I can't even remember her name. I was given it as a Christmas present and feel I have to plough through it, and it's slow going!
Rating:
Summary: A Smoky Mountain Odyssey
Review: The story is simple. A wounded confederate soldier decides he has had enough of war and slowly makes his way home, hoping the woman he loves, Ada, is waiting for him. The book chronicles this journey and reminds me a little of The Odyssey as well as Don Quixote.Based on the author's first hand knowledge of the smoky mountains and his family legends, the book transports the reader to a Civil War scenario that has little resemblance to Gone With the Wind. Details of death and destruction are described in gruesome clarity and the long road home is rife with them. Inman, the lead character encounters cruelty and kindness, starvation and capture, rogues and victims. The author uses words well, and some of the images will haunt my mind for a long time. The heroine, Ada, has been gently raised in Charleston and is not prepared for running a farm when her father dies and the hired help run off. She almost starves until another young woman of about her age, Ruby, moves in with her and teaches her how to survive. Ada's growth into competency and self-sufficiency is rendered with the same detailed descriptions as Inman's journey and I was left with a new appreciation of what farm life is all about. The book is good and I understand why publishers were thrilled with it. It has a big theme, is well written, and gives its readers a fresh new way to look at the Civil War. Many of the scenes made me flinch, but it also deepened my understanding of this very important period in history and what it is to be an American.
Rating:
Summary: The opposite of potboilers.....
Review: How many trashy potboilers have been written about the Civil War? Probably thousands, but 'Cold Mountain' is the welcome antidote to them all. Not a war story, not really a love story, Frazier's novel vividly recreates a world that is now dead, warts and all. This is not a romantic view of a woman waiting for her lover to return home from the war, but a book that shows the Civil War very much as it must have been. 'Cold Mountain' is the kind of book to be read on a long plane journey or at the weekend - so you can sleep in after staying up til 4am trying to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Cold Mountain - Gripping Tale of Human Spirit
Review: I could not put this book down. It is certainly one of the best I have read. It is a rare book that pulls me into it in such an emotional way. I was drained by the time I finished it.
Rating: 
Summary: I DON'T GET IT OR LIKE IT
Review: I really think I'm going to stop reading "debut" novels. I know that isn't very nice but most of them are a major disappointment and this is no exception. The characters are cliches, rather than being fully developed, so it's hard to impossible to care about any one of them. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I found the prose lumpy and laborious. Frazier also falls into many pitfalls of the novice writer, such as the "he said" syndrome. An example is found on page 335 of the hardcover edition--I can't get to sleep, she said. I'm awake, Ada said. What's keeping me from sleeping is I'm thinking about what I'll do with him if he lives, Ruby said. With Inman, Ada said. With Pap. We'll take him home and care for him is what, Ada siad. I'm obliged, Ruby said. You've never been obliged to anyone before, Ada said. That too, Ruby said. After about ten pages of this easily-corrected mistake, I had to put the book down or go nuts. I wondered if Frazier even READ the manuscript he wrote. He DOES have promise, I'll give him that, but he needs a few lessons on the art and craft of novel writing before continuing, something any editor or even first-reader should have spotted immediately.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it
Review: Charles Frazier has told a story about war that is not often told. He brings to life the story of civilian life during the Civil War. Frazier's character development is outstanding - even lesser characters are vivid such as Teague, and his band. I enjoyed the use of story telling by characters as a vehicle to supplement the experiences of the two main characters. Frazier's description of events from what people ate to what they were wearing brings the events to life. I look forward to the film - please, no Matt Damon as Inman!
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Story
Review: Almost impossible to put down. Tragic tale of human suffering along the fringe of the civil war. Frazier captured the hardships of life in this area of the Appalachian Mountains with great detail.
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