Rating: 
Summary: Disconnected
Review: A lot of the reminisced portion of the book was very good. I liked the story that took place in the amusement park - but for me she failed to make a connection with the parts of the book that dealt with her present life - eating brains in Paris.Not a total failure, it was a quick read, after all, but the connections didn't come through for me. Bill
Rating:
Summary: Disconnected
Review: A lot of the reminisced portion of the book was very good. I liked the story that took place in the amusement park - but for me she failed to make a connection with the parts of the book that dealt with her present life - eating brains in Paris. Not a total failure, it was a quick read, after all, but the connections didn't come through for me. Bill
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and farfetched
Review: Am I really supposed to believe that two fifteen year olds were served alcohol on a regular basis at local taverns? That they regularly picked up older men and were never raped? Give me a break. All this poetic writing gives me a pain in the neck. Also the "ugly duckling with beautiful friend" scenerio is nothing new and done better elsewhere. Moore can write, but why does she write like this? Why not write so that the average intelligent reader understands and can relate to her characters?
Rating: 
Summary: This book has meant the world to me
Review: I can't believe this novel is so maligned! I've read a lot of Moore, most of her short stories and part of her "Anagrams" (I got so mixed up reading that one I had to put it down), and "Frog Hospital" is by far my favorite. It is such a delicate little book... As for plot: the book alternates from the protagonist's present state of middle age marital ambiguity (while in Paris, which is described as "Anne Frank in a dress") to the narrators memories of her childhood friend Sils. Sils is manifest throughout, the book is really an elegy for what they meant to each other as girls, before boys came and school changed and adult awkwardness set in. One of the main themes is the narrators attempt to connect with those around her, to both "split her voice" and join in with the voices of those around her in perfect synch. I'm sorry too ramble, but there is just something so indescribably beautiful about what Moore is trying to illustrate, that I think it goes beyond basic opinions that the book is "depressing." I myself don't like to read heavy solemn novels, I've read all the "Princess Diaries" and not a thing by Hemingway or Faulkner, etc. With Moore I feel like the writing overcomes the sorrow it catalogues, in that it makes it something beautiful ("Middlemarch" is similar, it is depressing but the writing makes it uplifting). The only negative I can think of is that I did find it hard initially to get into the book, but that may be because Moore is accustomed to the short story form. Anyway, please read this novel, and ignore the negative reviews: it is worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: This book has meant the world to me
Review: I can't believe this novel is so maligned! I've read a lot of Moore, most of her short stories and part of her "Anagrams" (I got so mixed up reading that one I had to put it down), and "Frog Hospital" is by far my favorite. It is such a delicate little book... As for plot: the book alternates from the protagonist's present state of middle age marital ambiguity (while in Paris, which is described as "Anne Frank in a dress") to the narrators memories of her childhood friend Sils. Sils is manifest throughout, the book is really an elegy for what they meant to each other as girls, before boys came and school changed and adult awkwardness set in. One of the main themes is the narrators attempt to connect with those around her, to both "split her voice" and join in with the voices of those around her in perfect synch. I'm sorry too ramble, but there is just something so indescribably beautiful about what Moore is trying to illustrate, that I think it goes beyond basic opinions that the book is "depressing." I myself don't like to read heavy solemn novels, I've read all the "Princess Diaries" and not a thing by Hemingway or Faulkner, etc. With Moore I feel like the writing overcomes the sorrow it catalogues, in that it makes it something beautiful ("Middlemarch" is similar, it is depressing but the writing makes it uplifting). The only negative I can think of is that I did find it hard initially to get into the book, but that may be because Moore is accustomed to the short story form. Anyway, please read this novel, and ignore the negative reviews: it is worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: Moore's book impresses over and over again
Review: I first read the book because of it's intriguing title. And once I read it, I read other Moore books but I keep coming back to Who Would Run the Frog Hospital? I think what brings me back is that it reminds me of my childhood. It is a coming of age book, and Berrie is to women what Huck Finn is to men.
Rating:
Summary: Are you people crazy? Probably not.
Review: Let me first say that two books that I think are absurdly over-rated are (1) Lolita (2) Catch-22. Listen to me people. The humor in those two books is the same kind of humor you will find in a third-grade class room if all the students were pretentious nerds who studied their encyclopedias all day long instead of going out to play in the neighborhood, AND, if all the third-graders were given positively reinforced with candy each time they used a word that less than .5% of the general population can understand the meaning of. Listen, that's not all of it, of course. It would take a thousand pages for a complete third-grade/lolita/catch-22 metaphor. Why you shouldn't buy Lolita/catch-22: the authors are dead. Support people who are alive! The dead don't have to pay rent or buy stuffed animals for loved ones, etc. It vexes my brain why Lolita is praised by just about everyone for it's suppose-ed beautiful, poetic language. It's absurd. If you want beautiful language, buy THIS BOOK. Just read the first couple pages. It's amazing that Lorrie Moore did this without a computer. Each word is perfect, new, FRESH, inventive, beautiful, original, etc. She is about 100x smarter than you. The language of this book is so good, I don't even care about the plot. When I read it, the pleasure of each individual sentence is overwhelming, and subsequently, I have no more mental compartments to attend to the plot or anything else. So, even if the plot or the characters or whatever all these other reviewers are saying, is not BELIEVABLE or whatever, you should buy this book, and read sentence like it's poetry. I'm afraid i've failed to express sufficiently what I really think about this. Here's one last effort. If language were TV, Lolita would be a skit that didn't make it onto SNL. Who Will Run The Frog Hospital would be a really great novel. By the way, Anagrams is better, in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Are you people crazy? Probably not.
Review: Let me first say that two books that I think are absurdly over-rated are (1) Lolita (2) Catch-22. Listen to me people. The humor in those two books is the same kind of humor you will find in a third-grade class room if all the students were pretentious nerds who studied their encyclopedias all day long instead of going out to play in the neighborhood, AND, if all the third-graders were given positively reinforced with candy each time they used a word that less than .5% of the general population can understand the meaning of. Listen, that's not all of it, of course. It would take a thousand pages for a complete third-grade/lolita/catch-22 metaphor. Why you shouldn't buy Lolita/catch-22: the authors are dead. Support people who are alive! The dead don't have to pay rent or buy stuffed animals for loved ones, etc. It vexes my brain why Lolita is praised by just about everyone for it's suppose-ed beautiful, poetic language. It's absurd. If you want beautiful language, buy THIS BOOK. Just read the first couple pages. It's amazing that Lorrie Moore did this without a computer. Each word is perfect, new, FRESH, inventive, beautiful, original, etc. She is about 100x smarter than you. The language of this book is so good, I don't even care about the plot. When I read it, the pleasure of each individual sentence is overwhelming, and subsequently, I have no more mental compartments to attend to the plot or anything else. So, even if the plot or the characters or whatever all these other reviewers are saying, is not BELIEVABLE or whatever, you should buy this book, and read sentence like it's poetry. I'm afraid i've failed to express sufficiently what I really think about this. Here's one last effort. If language were TV, Lolita would be a skit that didn't make it onto SNL. Who Will Run The Frog Hospital would be a really great novel. By the way, Anagrams is better, in my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: Heartfelt,Moving,a book to make you ponder
Review: Lorrie Moore is a great talent. She has written a book
that is both moving and stimulates an appreciation for her
insight and creativity. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is a
coming of age novel with many deep commentaries on how relationships develop and disolve. It is a book about life,
change, loss and the situation of mankind. You can follow
an awkward teenager who discovers herself and develops a
profound awareness of her life and situation.
Rating:
Summary: I admire it, but it's incomplete
Review: Lorrie Moore is almost certainly the finest female writer now living. I've read Proulx and Morrison and Munro, and though Morrison has a bit more talent, Lorrie Moore surpasses her for keenness of perception, which, in the end, is the keystone of difference between a writer and a normal person. Frog Hospital is the work of a writer at her most powerful, but I think she let the power self-seduce her into writing a quasi-novel. It's essentially a collection of subplots -- all of which are great, I admit (I was destroyed by the scene where the girl is being led away in handcuffs and can't keep her nose from running -- the same thing used to happen when an ex-girlfriend of mine abjectly cried), but I had trouble finding a string for it all. Four stars is big, though. That's big. I'd only read her short stories prior to Frog Hospital, but I look forward to reading Anagrams.
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