Rating: 
Summary: a can't put it down read
Review: This book is about an economically depressed community in Maine and the interaction of the residents. The development of the characters is marvelous and makes it a joy to read because it seems that in each character you can somehow relate to their foibles and their folly. I enjoyed reading this book, cover to cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but I didn't get a lesson
Review: Empire Falls captivates the reader with its expert use of flashbacks and a bit of cliff-hanging. Russo's writing and vocabulary are superb, telling you just enough to intrigue you to keep going. I was eager to finish this book and learn its lesson.The very dramatic climax comes near the end and the story wraps up quickly after that. It left me hanging. I had expected a more profound lesson from the story. I would recommend it to someone who wants a pleasurable read, but one who is not seeking deep insight.
Rating: 
Summary: Empire Fell Flat
Review: I was optimistic upon starting out, but as the book progressed (or rather dragged on) I just couldn't get into it. Although some parts were funny, I felt a lot was overdone - and certain parts were just stuck here and there for shock value. I could easily skip over a page or two of objectionable content without missing much. I finished the book out of obligation and then threw it out. I didn't feel I could recommend this to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Life in Small-Town Maine
Review: I suppose if someone had asked me if I would like to read a novel set in present day Maine about a middle-aged man who manages a diner, and has all sorts of issues with his family and friends, my response would not have been "somebody pinch me". But I decided to give this book a try after hearing the author read a passage from it on public television one night, that struck me as very funny. But very funny this entire book is not - it's very entertaining and thought provoking though; it also won the author the Pulitzer Prize. The story takes you back and forth from the time that the protagonist is a youngster, teenager and college student with many ambitious dreams and aspirations, to the present day when he must deal with the everyday issues that face him in working and taking care of his family. There is a plethora of unusual and memorable characters, and you get a flavor of what it might be like to reside in a small town that at one time was thriving, but has been economically declining for several decades.
Rating:
Summary: 85% Wonderful
Review: Empire Falls is a nearly wonderful book, a meaty, character-rich novel of the sort it's frequently claims nobody writes (or possibly buys) anymore. The writing is not elegant and occasionally even clumsy, but the book's depth of feeling and sharp, astringent humor more than make up for it. Russo manages the rare trick of making an appealing lead out of a passive character in put-upon Empire Diner proprietor Miles Roby, but even more impressive are Miles' irresponsible father, Max, and soon to be ex-wife Janine. Singularly unpleasant individuals, Russo manages to nonetheless dig deep into each, making their interior lives so vivid that both become nearly appealing. And wrapped abount the town's comings and goings are the machinations of wealthy Francine Whiting, providing a fairy-tale backdrop to the otherwise realistic, slice of life story. All of this is compulsively readable and tremendously appealing, until a wind-up worthy of an underachieving TV movie. The book here jumps the rails into lurid melodrama, cheapening its characters and their world in an apparent reach for some kind of big finish. All it feels is false. Empire Falls is a novel well worth reading, but has the author been watching too much cable?
Rating:
Summary: Did not want it to end
Review: This is a wonderful book for anyone who wants to simply be entertained. This is not second rate fiction. Empire Falls is quality. His style of writing is wonderfuly accessible to the casual reader and satisfying for those who enjoy a book with more complex prose. I have never experienced character development like this. I was terribly concerned for the characters and what would happen to all of them. I cannot imagine anyone who would truely dislike this book, although I am sure there are a few people, it has something for everybody.
Rating:
Summary: So much of it works, it's sad that some of it doesn't.
Review: Overly dramatic in parts, Richard Russo's latest novel treads the familiar Russo ground of small, northeastern community life life while touching on the rigors and troubles of teenhood. Miles is a educated 40-something who runs a Maine diner for an old rich heiress, Mrs. Whiting, who seems fairly pleased, for more than a few reasons, to keep Miles under her thumb. A typical Russo atmosphere surrounds the story -- colorful chaps, a few loose women, men with a laundry list of regrets -- while Russo plumbs the darker vein of growing up in a cold, hard American teen landscape.
Miles is one of Russo's best-written characters, though I particularly liked what Jimmy Minty -- yes Jimmy -- brought to the table as crooked, needy cop from Miles' childhood, as well as Miles' ex-wife, who is effectively drawn as one of those women who forever expects some man to provide her with life answers she won't do the legwork for herself. Other characters, such as the newspaper reporter Horace and Miles' brother David, are nothing more than plot pushers. I don't care that much for the flashback structure, perhaps because the italics in the paperback edition call too much attention to its existence as a flashback. Quite frankly, I believe some of the pleasure was taken away in this sense: I almost felt as though I was reading the flashbacks to accrue key information. Russo wrote the book as his daughters were passing through high school, and it shows: Miles' daughter, named Tick, is a bit too idealized for any reality I know; whenever a negative quality seems about to seep in, off she scampers. Russo intends this girl as one of those all-time, too-true-for-this-world heartbreakers, and it works to some extent, although you wish Tick had a little more, I don't know, malicious moxie to go along with that apparently endless grace. The end? Well, it's a left turn. This book, I think, could have had a more satisfactory showdown between Miles and Mrs. Whiting. But, then, the weird kid Tick comes to befriend is in the book for some reason, isn't he? Once he's on the landscape, and the omnious warning has been made by the reporter (who, I might add, says something really stupid: "Don't ever become a reporter") well, you just know the ax is going to fall later.
Rating:
Summary: An exceptional novel
Review: I read this book over the recent Thanksgiving weekend and was so enchanted that I considered smuggling the book to the dinner table. This book captures the essence of a small Maine town where the best days are long past. The characters in this book are so rich and vivid that you immediately become the newest resident of Empire Falls, Maine. I assure you if you read "Empire Falls" you will not be dissapointed. In fact I am only dissapointed that it did not continue on for another 500 pages.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read this year
Review: This was my introduction to Richard Russo, and I will be reading more of his books.
The book does start out a little slowly, as others have mentioned, but it builds into a masterful, well crafted story.
I am rather impatient with multi-generational sagas, but the families in this book follow the arc of the development and decay of the town, and of small-town America in general, and it doesn't seem forced or "epic" at all.
One thread of the story takes place in high school, and Russo does a wonderful job of taking me back (more years than I want to acknowledge) to the tensions, the scrabbling for social standing, the near-universal insecurity. There is a tinge of allegory in the story (the central character, a very mild guy, is named Miles, for instance) and the Timmy the monster cat is positively medieval. And, the very title of the book, for that matter. But I like that sort of thing. The book reminds me somewhat of Don Delillo's Underworld, though in some ways it's the complete obverse. I grew up in a small town (in eastern Washington rather than central Maine) where the high school football games were front-page news, and from my perspective, the feel is certainly right. Potential readers should be aware that the book has some short but really graphic descriptions of child and animal cruelty. While they are essential to the plot, I found them quite upsetting. (I'm a bit surprised no one else seems to have thought them worth remarking on.)
Rating:
Summary: Good, Not Great...
Review: Empire Falls details the life of Miles Roby, the forty-something manager of the Empire Grill. Miles struggles with many demons, from his soon-to-be ex-wife to the owner of the restaurant, Mrs. Whiting. Mrs. Whiting, the richest and most powerful woman in Empire Falls, controls Miles by using the past against him. The novel explores the intricate connections between all of the families in the town and their relation to Miles. Over the course of the novel, Miles comprehends the time for change is nearing. He has spent the majority of his life pleasing others and...well, I cannot reveal what happens.... From partial flashbacks to thorough descriptions of the town's personalities, as a reader you are not led astray. The last one hundred pages of the novel include the most gripping action of the novel. It is also at the end of the novel where Russo's true genius shines through. His ability to create a complex storyline without extraneous detail and then to resolve it neatly is fantastic. Empire Falls won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize because the character development is top-notch. The reason that I am giving the novel only four stars is that it is over four hundred pages long (483 pages exactly). My only wish is that it could have been shorter. At the halfway point of the novel I almost put it down because I did not know where the author was taking me. However, I kept reading because the dialogue is realistic and easy to follow. Overall, I would recommend Empire Falls to those with plenty of reading time and especially to budding writers as an illustration as to how good fiction is created. It's not great but it is good.
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