Rating: 
Summary: An Uncommon Life?
Review: I have read all of the Mitford series. Although lacking in depth and true depiction of life, they are pleasant books and have some nice Christian messages. I am very disappointed in "A Common Life". It didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know. It also treats a sexual relationship between husband and wife as an embarrassment. It's silly to think that an older engaged couple would dread the discussion of marital sex with their bishop. Describing their sigh of relief and profuse blushing at the brief statement mentioning "lovemaking" was ridiculous. The complete exclusion of the couple having any physical life at all was disappointing. I do not like books packed with illicit sex. However, healthy married people do have relations. Hinting at that important part of a newlywed's life, and the adjustment to that lifestyle, could have been done tastefully. Instead we are given a victorian view of a beautiful, God-given gift. In other words, let's pretend sex does not exist. Cynthia and her "dearest" ( gag ) having a sex life is not the embarrassment here, Jan Karon's unrealistic portrayal of human nature is the true shame.
Rating: 
Summary: An easy read!
Review: I enjoyed my visit into Father Kavanaugh's little world once more. He was enchanting and winsome....Cynthia was sweet...
and they both deserved each other. This is how love should be. And the other characters were believable in their behavior....Jan Karon takes us into their thoughts....jealousy, dislike, infatuation, insecurity, stubborness...those very human emotions.
While I enjoyed the story very much, I think "The Common Life" would have fared better written in two or three chapters of another story. Entertaining though it was, it lacked the richness of the preceding "Mitford Years"
Rating:
Summary: Short but sweet
Review: For selfish reasons I was hoping for more detail. We tend to miss these folks after we have read the whole series and feel that they are part of our lives. I guess Ms. Karon had her reasons -- -- I think the best is yet to come from Jan Karon!!! At least I hope so.
Rating: 
Summary: It's all a matter of expectations
Review: I have read many of the reviews posted here and I'm disappointed that so many people who obviously enjoyed the other Mitford books did not like this one. I think the problem is that they expected a continuation of the story that left off in A New Song. Before I ever had this book in my hand I read a short blurb describing it in a catalog and that was when I realized it wasn't a continuation of the series, but was meant to go back and give some details of an event that was alluded to but not really described in any of the other books -- the wedding itself and the events leading up to it. I was disappointed at first to see that this book was not a continuation of the story -- like everyone else, I wanted to find out what happens next. But, when I read the book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also read, somewhere in the book or on the book jacket, that it seems there will be at least one more book like this, one dealing with Christmas. I am looking forward to it. I liked how A Common Life let you sort of get inside the heads of some of the other characters, learning a small bit of their histories that you didn't know before. I really liked this book and I hope all of the negative reviews here don't keep people from buying this book!
Rating: 
Summary: For better or worse?
Review: You can only imagine how thrilled I was to receive a copy of THE WEDDING STORY from my sister-in-law last week.We read Jan Karon's first five books (all in two weeks!) and fell in love with MITFORD and all of its residents! Well, the WEDDING STORY was a very nice story but should have been incorporated into one of her other books! Talk about spacing out copy and wide margins and thick stock to boot! The story was sweet. But, it left me feeling that somewhere down the Mitford series road, Cynthia Coppersmith is going to succumb to her publishers and whip out a 13 page VIOLET STORY about the slice of swiss cheese she left in New York! For better or worse, I'm still hooked on Mitford. Hope the story continues. Disappointed, but I'll get over it! Terry
Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: I gave my mother a book gift certificate for Christmas with a note that she should use it towards this book when it was released in April. She bought it as soon as it was released and read it right away. She called to tell me what a disapppointment it was and after reading it myself I agree. I didn't want to go back in time , I wanted to move forward with further character development. (What happens to Dooley?) We have already lived through Father Tim and Cynthia's engagement etc. I was ready to move on to the next phase in their lives and their friends. Going back was a huge disappointement, especially after having waited so long for this book. I hope the next book in the series no longer leaves us hanging....in the meantime I am going back and rereading the first books in the series so I don't forget all of the people in Mitford.
Rating:
Summary: OK but a bit of a disappointment
Review: This wasn't one of Jan's best efforts. But I think she just wanted to have something out "between books." I'd sure recommend reading Hickam's Coalwood books in the meantime - October Sky and The Coalwood Way - better in a lot of ways than Mitford!
Rating:
Summary: Who wrote this book?
Review: Any faithful reader of the Mitford series could have written this book. I love the first five books in the series dearly and highly recommend all of them to everyone. But, A Common Life: The Wedding Story is not in the same class. There is precious little really new in the book and the writing doesn't look familiar. Perhaps it is because of the various view points. However, that approach could be interesting and give us new insights into the supporting characters. But, it gives us very little. We love you Jan and we'll be waiting for book 7 (and 8 and...).
Rating:
Summary: Good, but too short!
Review: I can never say a bad word about any of the Mitford books, this one being no exception. It wasn't as good as the other 5, but I did enjoy it. We go back in time to the wedding of Father Tim and Cynthia and how he proposed to her. Jan Karon is such a talented writer, and as usual I hated to see the story end. If I were going to complain it would be that the book was too short. I was listening to it on Recorded Books Audio and out of the blue the narrator said, "the end". I was so surprised as there was still one whole tape left to listen to (which ended up being an interview with Jan Karon). If you have read the other 5 novels about Mitford then this book is a must, but a reader might not get much out of it if they start with this book. The characters aren't delved into very deeply.
Rating:
Summary: Rip off from the Book of Common Prayer
Review: A large portion of this book is taken from the Book of Common Prayer; much of the rest is pulled from her earlier books. I've read all of her books & have enjoyed them except for this one which is different in narrative voice from her other books and really does nothing to further the story line. The book is printed on very heavy stock to give the impression that there is more to the book than there actually is. Buy this book if you like heavy stock, not if you want a good story of the caliber of Karon's other books.
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