Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: If you like Alice Hoffman, you will love Richard Russo's Empire Falls. This book has everything, happiness, sadness, angst, horror, love, redemption - all seen through the eyes of most wonderfully defined characters I've experienced in a while. I loved The River King by Alice Hoffman and would rank this book as its equal.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: Small town living has trapped Miles Roby into a life that he has never wanted. He finds himself constantly at the beck and call of Empire Falls matriarch Francine Whiting, plagued by his reprobate father Max and ex-wife Janine while he struggles to make a decent living for his teenage daughter Tig. The memories Miles holds dear are about to be shattered in a compelling story filled with twists and turns that quickly shatter any illusion the reader may have of small town America.Richard Russo has brought a number of wonderful colorful characters to life in his book that stay with you long past the end of the story. This is one of those books that I found difficult to put down yet wanted to last so I could savor each word. I highly recommend this book to one and all as one of the best books I've read this year
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: Northern and Central New England have a lot of dying towns. The downtown aras which were once busy are home only to bridal shops. The more enterprising towns are now filled with antique stores... Empire Falls is such a town. I recently had a lot of time on my hands, and not a lot of books to read. My roommate suggested this book to me... This book won the Pulitzer, so that was a decent recommendation to begin with. I sped through this novel in 2 days. Russo has created a wonderful "empire" of his own with this novel. Everybody's lives weave in and out of one anothers. The setting, a depressed town in Central Maine, is like many of those towns in the Northeast that were once prosperous, and are now mere asterisks on a map... Russo has a great eye for the way these townspeople talk and think, much like his characters in the brilliant "Nobody's Fool." The manager of the grill, his angry brother, the never happy ex-wife, the rich mill owner's widow all come to life in this book... I recommend this book to anybody, it's a great read and en enjoyable one. The plot twists can be very surprising, and one of the climactic scenes left me shaking my head, I had not seen it coming at all...
Rating:
Summary: Empire Fall is a town I fell in love with
Review: I had heard such good things about this book and was uncertain if it would be the book for me to get into, but I was wrong. Within 30 pages I was hooked into the lives and feelings of the people in Empire Falls. Miles Roby is a man who has lived his life in Empire Falls. He runs and pretty much owns the Empire Grill. He is going through a divorce with his wife or soon to be ex-wife Janine and he feels like nothing in his life is really real. The Empire Grill is owned by the woman who owns almost everything in Empire Falls and he feels like he can't say anything to her because he is afraid of what might happen. He has a daughter Tick who is going through the joys of high school. She has just broken up with a popular boy named Zack Minty and is having to deal with the fact that when they broke up she lost most of her friends. So she makes friends with Candance who is a inbetween. She is popular but she wants to be, and she trys to make friends with a troubled young man John Voss who appears to be a loner with a lot of problems. Then there is Miles father Max who is an old man who only cares about a few select things in his life. He just wants to get down to the Florida Keys. He will do anything to get there even if means stealing from Miles or hurting those close to him. As Miles looks at his life around Empire Falls he starts to see things that he hadn't seen when he was growing up. His mother Grace is living a life of many different secrets, and Miles can't figure them out as a child and still struggles with them as a full grown man. As this books move along you meet a lot of people who will come into the story and touch your heart. Bea, Janine's mother who is struggling to figure things out in her life. Jimmy Minty who is looking to find faults with others and point them out and at times give Miles a tough time. Father Mark who is the younger priest at St. Cats who is looking to help Miles along his life's journeys. and many more charactors who come into the story. This was such a wonderful book. I felt when I finished it I was leaving behind a town that I had grown to love and feel part of. I am looking forward to reading more Richard Russo's books.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice To Be Home
Review: Come back home and meet all those memorable characters from your town/neighborhood. And get the behind-the-scenes stories on those families that you've always wondered about. What makes them "Tick"?
A good summer read because it pulls you into the town of Empire Falls,and allows you to temporarily live with Miles(the mild-mannered Grill manager) and watch events in this dying milltown unfold.(A great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.)
The ending was a bit sudden. I got to know these characters so well that I was not in that much of a hurry to say goodbe to them.
Worth the time; good book for discussion.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Characters, Shakey Moments
Review: "Empire Falls" is a book that both soars and sputters. For the most part, it is heartfelt, captivating and very, very funny. But then there are those off moments -- when the action rings false or when elaborately drawn designs ultimately amount to a hill of beans. The characters are the book's lifeblood. These are real people -- unfulfilled, hopeful, idiotic, loving, needy, beautiful. You'll laugh with them and at them. Some will make you sad and others angry. And some will leave you scratching your head at the end. Things don't tie up neatly. In fact, by page 400 Russo seems a bit rushed. But "Empire Falls" didn't win the Pulitzer Prize for nothing. It's much more satisfying than hipper critical faves such as "The Corrections" or "...Kavalier & Clay." You won't soon forget the main character's dad, Max ... even if you want to.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many words!
Review: I can't believe that I managed to finish this book. There were way too many words - I kept getting lost in the prose and waiting for something - anything - to happen. I am not sure why I persisted - I guess I kept thinking (hoping)that it would get better. The story could have been quite good - if he hadn't taken pages to say what could have been said in a couple of paragraphs. This was truly a disappointing novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Miles to go
Review: I bought this book because I'd heard it won a Pulitzer and I guess I was expecting The Grapes of Wrath. Miles Roby, the main character of the book, pretty much sleepwalks his way through, and we never do find out if he's gay or not. (Not that there's anything wrong with that--but not knowing was annoying) When his brother, David, let him have it in the decrepit restaurant they own,kind of like Cher in MOONSTRUCK when she slaps Nicholas Cage and shrieks "Snap out of it", I felt like applauding. David immediately is shut down by Charlene, who has the sorta hots for Miles. The "ripped from the headlines" shooting in the trailer at school was a bit much even if it did kind of wake Miles up.
I dunno. Maybe it's me. I'm glad for Russo that he won the award, but somehow I wonder if the standards for this prize have been lowered. Sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Russo¿s Empire Falls lives and breathes
Review: It is as much a part of the story as the multitude of characters that grace the pages of this book. A decidedly drawn vision of vanishing America, along with a way of life that is being swallowed up by an economic revival that leaves out the very individuals that ushered it in. Their lack of marketable skills for the up and coming times gives them a sense of uselessness in the era to come. This story is more than the economic downfall of a town, it is the many people that incorporate its value's, meshed together they present a story that positively wraps itself around the reader and pulls them in. Miles, dedicated dad and would-be proprietor of the Empire Grill (if only Mrs. Whiting would see fit to pass), is wracked with guilt over what should have been. Though a bit late, and at the age of 42, this is his coming of age story. He is surrounded by a cast of characters that include Tick his teenage daughter who is wise beyond her years, her mom Janine who has fallen out of love with Miles, and into the arms of "The Silver Fox", and my favorite her grandfather the Machiavellian Max, a mooch with cheese puffs in his beard. The story takes an unexpected dark turn as the plot thickens. If you are lucky enough to listen to the book on tape there is an interview with the author where he speaks of his many sleepless nights while writing this book. As the story unfolded it became "one long night sweat" says Russo. He knew what was coming, and its intensity on a daily basis as he worked on the book grated on his sensibility. This was a gripping piece of fiction from an author that writes not only novels but successful screenplays. He is a force to be reckoned with and an author worth watching. Kelsana 7/17/02
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of Character Creation and Development
Review: Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Empire Falls" is the kind of book that's just fun to curl up with and enjoy at a slow pace. A novel of "blue-collar life," "Empire Falls" follows everyman Miles Roby, a forty-two-year-old manager at the Empire Grill, the final restaurant holdout in the dying Maine mill town of Empire Falls. The enigmatic Mrs. Whiting owns everything in town, from the Grill to the defunct textile mills whose closing began the slow process of decay that led to the events in the book. Miles is joined by an enormous cast of characters, including his soon-to-be ex-wife, the fitness-obsessed Janine; their artistic but alienated child Tick; Max, Miles' Dionysian father; Jimmy Minty, Miles' friend from school and the main policeman in town; Zack, Minty's son, who isn't over being spurned by Tick in matters of love; and a whole host of other memorable characters. Russo breathes life into these people through lengthy historical flashbacks, usually in the midst of their day-to-day conversations, a technique that lends the book a leisurely pace and prevents what little action there is from taking precedence over the characters and their development. The "action," which is really just an extension of the character development anyway, mostly revolves around events that lead each character to become more complete people. Note: not necessarily BETTER people, but more COMPLETE people. It's been said that an author can never create a convincing person, just a hollow shell. Russo bucks that wisdom in "Empire Falls," managing to create people so subtle and nuanced the reader would swear they are merely doppelgangers for the inhabitants of a real town - Somewhere, USA. For that talent, no doubt, Russo took home his Prize, and deservedly so. Engaging without being pretentious, and grounded without sinking into the muck, "Empire Falls" makes a fantastic read for anyone who enjoys a good, long character-driven book. Other authors, take note: this is how characters should be developed. Final Grade: A
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