Rating: 
Summary: I Loved This Book!
Review: I actually was sad when I finished it! The characters, plot, and tone were elegeantly constructed and lively. I felt as though I were there! I can see why this book won the Pulitzer. I am now a huge fan of Richard Russo.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointed
Review: This is the first Russo book I have read and might be the last. Actually I have not finished it yet and have been trying to do so for the last 2 1/2 months. The book is very well written and the story does indeed give a look at everyday life. I however found it rather boring. The book is not engrossing in the least...I have to really work hard to convince myself to pick it. Once I do start reading it again it is mildly entertaining, but as a mother of three small children I really need a book to draw me in or else it is not worth my time. This book did not draw me; I found the character development rather lacking.
Rating: 
Summary: If books were salad dressing, this would be Ranch.
Review: I hadn't read Richard Russo before "Empire Falls" and decided to pick it up after the Pulitzer. Had it not been lauded and puffed by critics and all those mighty big brains at Columbia, I would have read it, shrugged and tossed it onto my forgettable shelf next to the Chia-Pet and that thing that was supposed to electrocute my abs into shape.But this thing was: the Pulitzer! Critical acclaim! "Empire Falls" is a solid B+ novel. It has some funny moments, it has some dramatic moments. The prose is light and fluid and generally engaging enough; it's well-used in sketching out an interesting, if archtypical, cast of characters. The story is a little heavy on the flashbacks (especially with the italics--too much curvy serif is hard on the eyes), there's a bit of skillet-to-the-forebrain in the character development and town history and some of the comedy seems about as spontaneous as a Bush press conference. Still, it's a good book that doesn't make you feel like your time has been wasted. But there is absolutely nothing remarkable about it. It's a pastiche of a pastiche: it's John Irving doing Ray Carver doing Carson McCullers doing Sherwood Anderson. It's the kind of book that you imagine seeing on the bedstand of a reconstructed 2001-2 American home in some museum of the future. It's the kind of book you'd give as a Secret Santa to a coworker you don't know very well. If books were salad dressings, "Empire Falls" would be Ranch. And not even Peppercorn or Zesty Ranch. Normally, this wouldn't draw any complaint from me--but considering all the praise that's been heaped upon Russo, I think some amount of deflation is in order. "Empire Falls", while a good and worthwhile read, is just nothing special.
Rating:
Summary: Small-town Masterpiece
Review: I have spent the last two weeks in Empire Falls, Maine. I only briefly left two days ago, and I was devastated. Richard Russo's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel took me hostage, and I wasn't able to leave until recently. Russo's brilliance lies in the way he [draws] the reader into his world, his small town. Like a naive tourist, I fell right into Tick's high school class, the stool next to Walt Comeau in the Empire Grill, the simple gazebo of Mrs. Whiting's mansion. I've never felt like I knew characters better than I did the residents of Empire Falls. Initially, I felt the book was too slow, taking its time getting anywhere. Once the plot started going, it was impossible to stop. I can honestly say that the last 100 pages of Russo's masterpiece is some of the finest literature I have ever had the opportunity to read. From the initial developments, to the suspenseful plot, to Russo's biblical, allegorical ending, I became a part-time resident of Empire Falls. And it is with a contrite spirit and tearful eye that I wave goodbye to my home of two weeks.
Rating: 
Summary: 4.9 stars and I still feel that I needed to round down
Review: Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed this book. I really enjoyed the character developement and that is the kind of reader I am. I felt many times that I could sense how the characters might have handled each situation and later in the book, I was surprised by the events, but not the characters' reactions to the situation. I love when a book ends the way that Empire Falls did(Still a few things that you want to know about the characters, so that you are allowed to ponder what they might do next).
This book is funny, charming and surprising. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Small town life
Review: Miles Roby grew up in the small town of Empire Falls. He was supposed to go away to college and never come back, but his mother's illness caused him to return. Somehow or another, he stayed. Miles now manages a small hamburger joint, the Empire Grill, in Empire Falls. It's owned by the imperious Mrs Whiting--a formidable woman who seems to own most of Empire Falls--and, according to some of the locals, she owns Miles too. Miles has a lot of problems with the people in his life. He nurses a crush, which is not reciprocated, on Charlene, a waitress at the Empire Grill. Meanwhile Charlene has married and divorced several times. Mrs Whiting's daughter, Cindy, has a crush on Miles of equally long standing. She's tried to kill herself twice and says Miles is the cause of her unhappiness. Jimmy Minty, a former childhood friend is taking competitiveness to new levels. Janine, the ex-Mrs Roby, has recently rediscovered sex and now plans to marry Walt Comeau, the brash loud-mouth who owns the local gym. Walt seems to think it's his goal to humiliate Miles on a daily basis, and he's the Empire Grill's most annoying customer. On top of all these situations, Miles even manages to tolerate his father, Max's stealing. Miles has to be the most long-suffering character I've encountered in literature in a long time. Russo was correct in creating Miles as a stoic who one day surprises all those who've been counting on his continued silence and tolerance. All the characters are very well developed--even the fairly minor ones. I read this book after reading "Straight Man"--also by Russo. "Empire Falls" is a long book--almost 500 pages, not as funny as "Straight Man" but very amusing. One thing, however, stopped me from giving this book 5 stars--and that's the ending. I think the ending came too abruptly. I found myself with questions about some of the characters. Russo seemed to leave them (and the reader) hanging. The entire John Voss incident seemed to detract from the rest of the book and gave the story a different element altogether.
Rating:
Summary: An ok Beach Read...
Review: ..but nothing we haven't heard before or will remember very long after. I am actually surprised at the fuss that has been made over this book, as it doesn't really break any new ground and the last 25 pages have all the hallmarks of an impatient editor saying "hey, c'mon, enough already, kill 'em all off or whatever but WRAP IT UP" This leads to a more or less completely unbelieveable "happy ending" that frustrates as much as it resolves. That being said, I had no problems reading & finishing the book, and students who come from towns that are very similar to Empire Falls say that they are, well, similar to Empire Falls, so if you are looking for an apt description of local colour in Mid-Maine, look no further, but Great Literature? I don't think so.
Rating:
Summary: This is a truly awsome book.
Review: Richard Russo has evolved into our greatest living American novelist because his books speak to a deep human longing for stories. He writes the kinds of books that you simply cannot put down. Russo's books are compulsively readable. He writes very big books that that read like small books. You keep telling yourself as you read "just one more chapter" only to reach its end and be driven on, "just one more." Soon you've read roughly 500 pages and realize you haven't slept in two days. Russo is a master at weaving a portrait of blighted small-town life, his aim is much deeper-especially in this novel as compared to earlier works. "Empire Falls," like Russo's earlier novels, is about a small-town blue-collar world, where people are left trying to make a life out of just getting by. "Empire Falls" Is not nearly as funny as his last book, "The Straight Man" (which page for page may well beat "Catch-22" for laughs and manic intensity), or as idiosyncratic as, say, "Risk Pool" or "Nobody's Fool" but "Empire Falls" penetrates deeper than any of Russo's previous novels. Miles Roby is at the heart of this intricately told tale. Miles is a genuinely good guy, too good, at times, for his own good. Miles left college after his second year to care for his ailing mother, but never returned. Against everything she wanted for him he remained in Empire Falls, ultimately running the Empire Grill -- a greasy spoon that serves as a window into life in the town. His main goal at this point it to do for his daughter what his mother wasn't able to convince him to do-get out of town in one piece to create a new future elsewhere, beyond the overwhelming, entrapping influence of Empire Falls. The characters that move in and out of the Empire Grill are reminiscent of Russo's earlier characters, especially the ne'er-do-well but amusing father, a staple of his fiction. The troubles, hopes, and joys are those of small town life, by turns hilarious, disappointing, and downright sad. This is far and away Russo's best piece from an ensemble point of view-all of the secondry characters benefit from extraordinarily rich character development and, obviously, were drawn with real affection and feeling on Russo's part. Miles is living a dutiful life that is not of his own choosing. Busy being the good son, brother, husband, father, employee and friend, Miles' life has ineluctably been driven on by other people's demands, even by their hopes and dreams. It's not just the bittersweet recognition that life doesn't turn out as we imagine it; it's that Miles can't quite remember what he once imagined, what his longings once were. Russo's story, dipping into the past to illuminate the present, is Miles' search for the truth writ small -- in the details of his own life, in the history of Empire Falls, in his own wry, intricate, often hilarious musings about his life in particular on Empire Falls in general. It is truth on a small scale, which is the kind of truth in the end that matters most to us as individuals. It shapes our lives and gives them meaning. Russo shows us a world where the good guys don't always win, where the petty slights of life reek destruction in cruelty and meanness. It's a palpable reminder that we are capable of evil. But it is just as surely a reminder that we are capable of goodness. In Russo's able hands, the achingly personal becomes deft social commentary. That's an all the more astonishing achievement, because it reads, purely and simply, like a good story. This is a truly awesome book.
Rating:
Summary: Small Town America
Review: Small Town personalities and challenges with universal appeal:
School violence, teenage angst, divorce, struggling economic times, the price of wealth, the difficulty of being a parent.
I don't think this book has necessarily Pulitzer Prize material, but was definitely an interesting and complicated story with likeable but flat characters. The play was multi-layered with different periods of time and phases of life. Basically, Empire Falls is a story of people who are trying to deal with the inconsistencies in their dreams, realities, and things outside their control.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book
Review: On the surface the storyline is simple and compelling. It is the quality of Richard Russo's writing as it weaves subtle connections and ironies throughout the story that makes this one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read. Russo seems to have great respect for his reader, assuming intelligence and wit. In an age of high-impact cinema with special effects that spell out every turn of events in a plot; Empire Falls offers sophistication, elegance and meaning to an audience that prefers to think when they read.
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