Cold Mountain

Rating:
Summary: As a Student, I did not like this book
Review: I am fifteen years old and I had to choose a Civil War book to write a review on. I chose Cold Mountain, frankly, because my grandmother had read it and she said that it was a good book. Little did I know that this book was so tedious to read. I ended up skipping pages at a time just to get on with the story. The ending was awful and, I am not sure if this is because of my age or what, but I didn't think that the story itself was that great. The description was excellent, but after reading two pages of discription, one tends to get a little tired of it, am I right? Overall, I didn't like this book and now I am stuck writing a review of it.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, but the story is seriously flawed
Review: Frazier had me with the first two chapters. I have read accounts of Civil War battles, but none struck me with the force of the main character's description. Especially when the main character told a blind man that he wished he could not see because he had seen too much in battle. I didn't blame him when he went out the window and started walking home. But soon after he sets out, I began to lose interest because his adventures on the road didn't feel as if they were connected to a larger story. In the alternating chapters, I thought his account of a young woman struggling to survive on the farm her father left to her was funny and very believable, but, again, I soon lost interest because the events didn't feel as if they were conected to a larger story. For me the problem was with the relationships between the soldier and the young woman. It just wasn't powerful enough to keep me envolved in the story.

Rating:
Summary: It gets under your skin
Review: I listened to the unabridged audio version of Cold Mountain, read by the author. Several times I sat in the parking lot listening, not getting out and going to work. The images evoked by the words and voice of the author, left me choked with emotion. One annoyance though--the constant use of the word "could," as in he could see or she could hear. Why not "he saw" or "she heard"? Neither were blind nor deaf. Of course, they "could."

Rating:
Summary: Basically an unenjoyable book with a bad ending.
Review: The book was filled with unwanted details and it contained very little description of how the characters actually felt; It said nothing about emmotions, so in my imagination I could only picture the characters as lifeless zombies. The closing of the lengthy book was extremely confusing and I could not tell if the main character died or not. The very ending of the book might as well have been,"They all lived happily ever after." It was just not a very good book and I don't know why it has received so many positive comments.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting, poetic, destined to be a classic.
Review: I must admit to a certain bias, since Mr. Frazier is a distant cousin of my husband and we had heard about the writing of this book for years before it was published. I knew nothing about the story, however, other than it involving a distant relative. I also admit to being a "professional reader" and I know real literature when I read it, and this book is destined to be a classic. I have read some of the reviews here and I don't understand the charges of depressing content. What about Wuthering Heights? The Hunchback of Notre Dame? What classic has a pat and happy ending? I think that this book is not for everyone -- my own husband had a difficult time reading it because of the beautiful language and mountain phrases, but then he isn't a big reader anyway. This book can't be read in a couple of days. It must be savored, read and reread, and all the layers of meaning considered and reconsidered. I did not find it depressing, as I am a basically optimistic person, but I did miss the ending and finished the book thoroughly convinced that Inman had lived and that his and Ada's children were romping with Ruby's in the last chapter. My husband set me straight, however, and I had to reread the last couple of chapters. I like the real ending better than my mistaken one. Life does not always have a pat ending, and this was a reality for many, many families in the South after the war. In fact, I think this book made the Civil War more real to me than anything I have ever read or studied before. I couldn't help but to compare the Vietnam War experience with Inman's war experiences. While the Vietnam war was horrible because the enemy wasn't always easy to find or to distinguish from civilians, once the veterans of this war came home, they were relatively safe physically even while they carried their war wounds internally. Inman was mentally as well as physically wounded, too, but the war was being fought on his home territory, so he didn't even have the physical safety he so desperately sought. He, too, didn't know who was an enemy or friend, and no cove, no matter how remote, was hidden enough to escape detection by wandering soldiers. I live near this area of the Appalachians and am well aware of the tragedy that befell families that lived here during the war. Some of my own ancestors walked away from the war, just as Inman did, to go back to their farms and see about their families, after having volunteered in a war they didn't really understand. These mountain people were not fighting for slavery, for most were very poor and certainly didn't own slaves or even know anyone who did. They were simply volunteering and maybe some were even looking for adventure outside their own coves, but the reality of the war was a shock to many. When they returned home to their neglected farms, they often found their resources plundered and their families traumatized after finding the war on their own doorstep. This area of the Appalachians, even though southern, was not strongly for either side and there was confusion, then, over who was an enemy and who wasn't. I felt the book beautifully captured this confusion and the destruction of the world as these people had known it. I loved Ruby and felt that she characterized the spirit of the mountain people, both then and now. The ferocious independence and the ability to survive in a wild geographical area was nicely illustrated by the contrast between the very capable Ruby and the dreamy Ada. My favorite scene is the one where Ruby absent-mindedly slips Ada's braclet off of her arm and places on her own, and then puts if back. This symbolized the symbiosis these two women shared. Their survival depended on their working together on the farm, both before and after Inman found Ada. Although this is a beautiful yet tragic love story between a man and a woman, it is also a story of female bonding and love between friends. I love historical fiction and when I read a book such as this, I want to be transported into another time and place and I want the details to be historically accurate so that I can learn and experience what life was like at that time and during those events in history. This book gave me all this and more. The language was so beautiful that I must rank this book second only to my favorite, How Green Was My Valley. To anyone wanting an easy read, or a simple love story with a happy ending, go read something else. But to those who want to come away changed forever in the way you think about the Civil War, or the mountain people of the Appalachians, or about life itself, settle yourself in for a wonderful, satisfying read.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful piece of work with amazing chapters!
Review: Read this book

Rating:
Summary: This book drags on and on and on.
Review: This book drags on and on and on and on. The story just keeps going on and on. He walks and walks and walks. There isn't any real climax, and the book is just plain boring.

Rating:
Summary: A stunningly beautiful novel
Review: Charles Frazier has managed to--with his first book--create a story that signifies life. Many people claim that this novel is depressing. Maybe to them it is, but it's like Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet', the story may not have a happy ending, but that doesn't mean it isn't beautiful. This is a book that everyone should read. It's masterly plotted, and brilliantly written. The descriptions of the south show a hidden beauty in the (figurative) darkness of the region in that time. One reviewer commented that it always seemed like it was night--exactly!!! Frazier used the dark, cold setting as a literary device on which to place a brilliant love story. READ THIS BOOK!!!

Rating:
Summary: Betrays the reader.
Review: The author invites you into his home, feeds you a delicious meal of steak and grits, plays beautiful music, and shows you grand vistas painted by gifted artists of the past. Then all smiles and hugs, as you depart after a memorable evening, he stabs you in the back and leaves you dead on his front porch as one of his war trophies. Avoid this author.

Rating:
Summary: Eloquent and artful!
Review: A masterful description of the hardships during a difficult period in our history.