Rating: 
Summary: A good romance for the homebound
Review: If you are a shut-in who likes to keep one eye on the skies, this might be the book for you. Who was Ahab? You might well ask, he was a fictional character in Herman Melville's American Renaissance masterpiece Moby-Dick or The Whale, and his name has become a watchword for monomania and for obsession, particularly when lived in an all-male world of men and their pursuits. His quest to kill the white whale forms the backbone of Melville's Novel, and in Jeter Naslund's epic tale, it forms a significant subplot.
You won't believe the adventures young UNA gets up to when, disguised as a teenaged boy, she sets sail on a whaler herself and becomes entangled, like Cukor's film of SYLVIA SCARLETT, with two very different men. Okay, it's a little farfetched, but it's still very romantic, and Una has a poetic voice that will remind readers with long memories of the late Elinor Wylie. Only you can tell if she was able to extend the captivating voice to cover the length of so many pages (nearly as long as Clinton's memoirs!) or if, somewhere along the way, Una becomes as shadowy as her elderly husband's plans for vengeance. In the meantime, it's a good romance for people with lots of time, and perhaps the perfect summer book for folks vacationing in Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard.
No matter which, you'll enjoy it, it's a real page turner, at least for some of it.
Rating: 
Summary: gripping story, if you skip the philosophizing
Review: The heroine has an exciting life--enough for three lives. At first, I couldn't put it down, then, I got bored by the philosophizing in between the "juicy parts." One wonders if the author is trying to be a poet in the middle of her novel.
I especially liked the charcterizations, though some of them were too stock, too stereotyped. The book could've been improved by shortening it about 200 pages.
Still, I would recommend it as a good story of whaling times; what it's like aboard ship; life in Nantucket; how men felt about women and visa-versa; the plight of slaves, and childbirth in the 19th C.
Rating:
Summary: A Magical Journey
Review: This is a BIG read--a fairytale for grownups.Adolescent Una is wisely sent to live with her mothers sister,in a lighthouse,to avoid the increasing possibility of abuse by her father, a religious fanatic.She spends 4 happy years with them before running away to sea,disguised as a boy with two young men to whom she is equally attracted.This book is the sory of her 3 marriages the second of which is to Captain Ahab,a whaler and declared mortal enemy of Moby Dick,the great white whale.We follow Una through tragedies,joys,the loss of 2 husbands and a baby ,to where she finally reaches true happiness and fulfillment.The book is peopled with an assortment of fascinating characters,and M/s Naslund paints incredibly beautiful and vivid word pictures of Nantucket and both the beauty and horror of living in a coastal town with all its connections with the barbarities of the whaling trade.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, just too long
Review: This is a huge, ambitious, captivating novel that suffers from its length. After reading every word raptly for 400 pages (the sections on the lighthouse island and on board the ships were amazing) she really lost me for the final couple hundred pages. Superfluous characters abounded (Robben? David Poland? Maria Mitchell? Even Frannie had totally lost her appeal). Superfluous plot devices abounded (the move to 'Sconset, and almost all that happened there). Characters were thrown in only to be killed off before we have a chance to care. It is as if Naslund fell so in love with this story that she couldn't bear to climb out of it--but it would have benefitted from an earlier conclusion. That said, this book did that rare job of drawing me in completely to the world it created, so much so that it stayed in my head at night after I had closed the book. Vivid, beautifully political, perfectly graphic, sensual--a damn good read for the first several hundred pages. One more complaint--she didn't mention Melville in the Acknowledgments. Come on, Sena, you took the whole basis for the novel from him! Don't you think he deserves that much?
Rating: 
Summary: one et the same
Review: Una is a classic hero in the sense that she is everyman, universally processing the larger themes of humanity within her circumstances. the details are richly told, et it would be easy to lose oneself in the superficial tale of a woman from another time et another place. But that would be missing the forest for all of the trees. Read this slowly if you need to, but do digest. Reading this book is your own journey, not a life-altering new age pseudo-experience, but that rare art of self-examination et enjoyment.
Rating:
Summary: truly enjoyable
Review: While many have already commented on this book, I felt compelled to add my thoughts. I didn't expect to like this novel when suggested for my book group. But then I began and was immediately hooked. I did briefly get bogged down but once passed it realized that this reflected life- sometimes it is a bit boring and monotonous. Then I was completely engaged and read nearly 400 pages in three days while caring for 3 children under age 6 round the clock! Yes, this novel does have some seemingly amazing instances of meeting/interacting with 'celebrities' but I enjoyed these, didn't find them highly unlikely in this area of country and also helpful for readers to place the time and issues better. To those who seem to disbelieve that Una could be so educated without having been 'formally schooled' I am surprised. Home schooling was the prominent education for many in those days, especially women. Why, many of our Presidents and other notable minds in the United States were homeschooled. Her mother and aunt were clearly raised on literature as they then educated Una. I enjoyed this book very much and recommend it to all.
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