Cold Mountain

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: This is a wonderful book with enjoyable characters and a touching plot. The writing flows from the pages like a well structured poem. I suggest that anyone who clicks onto this selection to buy it--you won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting, evocative, lyrical recreation of "The Odyssey"
Review: Like Odysseus, Confederate war victim Inman only wants to go home again. In his walk across the lower South to Cold Mountain, echoed in his lover's struggle to find a place for herself in post-war Appalachia, Frazier re-creates for us a lost world, a South where people were isolated on widely scattered farms, where your relations with your neighbors might decide whether you lived or died, and where the ravages of a fratricidal war have forever broken a community built on mutual dependence and a shared ethic. Frazier loves his landscape, both human and natural; like all great historical writers he knows that in more rural times the landscape was not just there for decoration. The interaction between the land and the people shaped both in irrevocable ways. "Cold Mountain" is not just about one man's return to his beloved Penelope, it is about the passing of a Southern landscape and a mindset we know only fleetingly, but which shaped our literary landscape forever. The people are warm and real, the land is wide and mysterious, and the story is touching and compelling. Well done, Mr. Frazier, very well done indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to get into but worth the trip.
Review: I really had a hard time with the first part of the book but was determined because I had heard such good things about the book from friends. I am so glad I am stubborn. I really loved the book and will recommend it to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Lost on the first sentance
Review: This novel could have been a good piece of work, but was so poorly written. I could only stand reading the first couple words without becoming lost. And what was all the hype about? Obviously, people don't know what a good book is.

Rating:
Summary: Was the best modern literature book written in a long time.
Review: I read this book last year for a book report i had to do overt the summer for school. My sister gave it to me and I thought that it would be alright, as long as it counted. but as I got into the plot, I found it to be one of the most interesting and well thought out books I ever read. It feels as though you are acually travelling along with Inman along his journey. You also feel Ada's anticipation and worries while waiting for Inman. I feel that this is a great book for anyone that likes to read and not just books that are short and funny. I'm 13 and I found that it is not a book just for adults. if you want a good book, this is definatly a book to check out.

Rating:
Summary: An adventurous tale, and a twist of an astounding love story
Review: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier wrote a novel of an adventurous Confederate soldier, Inman, in his quest to make it back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And to add a little twist to this adventurous tale, an astounding love story evolves between Inman and a woman by the name of Ada, whom he has loved has made him even more determined to come back to the mountains. In my opinion, I haven't read many novels in which an author can combine adventure and love all in one heartwarming story. So if you're in the hunger for adventure and love, this novel will satisfy your hunger with the story it has to tell.

Rating:
Summary: This book is an insult and a waste of time
Review: I would have stopped reading this long ago if it wasn't for my English class. I can honnestly say that the hours I spent reading this book were hours of my life completely wasted. The charecters, emotions and scenes are underdeveloped and extremely depressing. The way this book is written one would wonder if the author is suicidal, or perhaps he is simply without taste or well developed writing skills. Warning: Cold Mountain should only be attempted with a bottle of prozac.

Rating:
Summary: Too much hype
Review: One of the the worst books I've read in a long time. I saw the potential for a good story there but it was all lost in long and flat narratives. Could not identify with any of the characters and have a feeling I really did not get to know them. Very frustrating.

Rating:
Summary: Where have you been all of my (literate) life?
Review: -Mr. Frazier, you have fulfilled a most hopeful promise. That there are wordsmiths alive and willing to share their tragically beautiful and sensitive souls with those of us who yearn...yes! I meant to say yearn... for the permission to accept all of the elements we experience on this earth. The tone and pace and voice and depth of COLD MOUNTAIN are more keen than anything I can recall. Surely there is no prize available to you that can replace what you already posess. What a peaceful sleep you must enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: real time civil war life and hardship
Review: Everyone will tell you that the pace of the novel moves deathly slow, and that's true. However, I think the writing technique was used to reflect the pace of the era. The story of a man fed up with fighting for someting he no longer believes in (if he ever thought he did), Inman leaves a southern civil war hospital and heads for home and his sweetheart. He endures unending hardship. Ada and Ruby (especially) give the book whatever glow it has. What drove me, and the other two women who read Cold Mountian with me WILD was the ending. The book would have benefited from a stronger editorial hand. I would not ever waste my time on another book by this author.