Rating: 
Summary: Good right until the end
Review: Empire Falls reminded me of early John Grisham works, great stories but he didn't know how to write an ending. This is the case with this book whose abrupt ending left me fuming. One differnce though is that Grisham wrote bad endings that had closure while Russo's ending is bad without clossure. Why take all the time to develop characters and then leave them hanging when we most want to find out what they have learned? This was my first Richard Russo book and now I have no desire to read any others.
Rating: 
Summary: I didn't want it to end
Review: I enjoyed STRAIGHT MAN, Russo's previous novel, but EMPIRE FALLS just absorbed me completely. This author knows how to tell a story, and how to make you care about characters. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Another Russo Success
Review: Russo succeeds here in bringing us another character-driven, bitterly humorous, and heart-wrenching tale of "town color" that could reaffirm anyone's belief in contemporary fiction. The book is a joy to read, and you'll find yourself alternating between shaking your fist at the world's imperfections and laughing out loud at Russo's sharp-edged wit.
Rating: 
Summary: Russo's reality
Review: I bought this book because it is a best seller in Maine, and having just moved here, I was interested to find out why. Russo tells a good story, although I found the scenery to be a bit on the "bleak" side. His main character, hero Miles Roby, is likable enough, but the true gems of the story are the Whitings. If the book slows down at times, do not stop -- the ending is worth the entire read.
Rating:
Summary: COME VISIT EMPIRE FALLS
Review: THIS WAS A GREAT BOOK.... LIFE IN EMPIRE FALLS AT TIMES COULD BE VERY SAD, AND THEN VERY QUICKLY IT COULD BE LAUGH OUT LOUD FUNNY. RICHARD RUSSO'S CHARACTERS CUT RIGHT TO THE HEART...WELL WORTH READING....
Rating:
Summary: Empire falls
Review: Empire Falls by Rich Russo is great book about the struggles of present day characters in a decayed mill town in Maine. Russo does a fine job bringing the reader into the tone and texture of each. Descriptions of conversations between Miles, the main character -owner/manager/cook at the empire grill and each of his customers strikes you as real enough to smell the bacon and want to slap the local deputy, Mr. Minty smack across his chops. Miles is the anti-hero, everyday smo, seemingly stepped on by the grills and Mills owner, rich Ms. Whiting, his ex-wife - Janine, his Dad -Max and just about everybody else. Like that character George Bailey in the old film "It's a wonderful life", things seem to get worse every page for old Miles until an absolute catastrophe effects and will absolve all the trivial things he has experienced in life to date. Featuring great character development and dialog Empire Falls is worth a weekend read but don't give in three forths of the way through as this book has a killer ending. It leaves you hoping that more of those mill towns had or have heroes like Miles, eccentrics like his Dad and masterful if not outright diabolical women like Mrs. Whiting.
Rating:
Summary: Like a Letter from Home
Review: If you're a fan of Russo--which means if you're a fan of childhood angst, parental squabbling, remarkably colorful characters who happen to hang around diners, taverns, and, in this case, "rectums" (the church rectory)--then you're back home with one of America's best teller of tales. To read Russo is to get that proverbial Letter from Home. Does he take the reader where the reader's never been? Probably not, some will think, because many of the characters and settings are oh-so-familiar. But don't be nobody's fool here..there is enough humor, enough insight, and enough pathos to keep you turning page-after-page. This is a great read. And you can almost see the Hollywood guys casting this film ...
Rating:
Summary: Classic Russo--small town, complete characters
Review: I loved this book tremendously until the last 50-100 pages. The end seemed rushed to me, as if he had an editor that was after him to "wrap it up." Beyond that, the characters, in my opinion, were fully realized and intersting. That is, after all, the trademark of a Richard Russo novel. I loved Tick and her dead-on descriptions of high school. Miles was great, and I found his indecision or inaction to be so typical of people I have known. I even loved Janine, the ex-wife, so determined to have her life her way that she seems insensitive to everyone else. Everyone has good and bad points to them; hence they are real. Having grown up in an area similar to the description of Empire Falls back East, I always relate to the settings in Russo's novels, and this one was no exception. I thoroughtly enjoyed the book.
Rating:
Summary: I'm glad for this book
Review: Straight Man was not Richard Russo's novel. The characters were funny, but you could tell the book was written out of some dark place, without the affection and respect for characters that we've seen in Mohawk, The Risk Pool, and Nobody's Fool. I'm glad to be back on familiar ground, no matter how dingy and sad, where Russo can show us something noble and real while setting up some of the most funny situations in today's literature. This book is one of those that you wish would never end (though, you might wish it didn't end the way it does, even if it couldn't end any other way). I'm looking forward to 4 or 5 years from now when Russo puts out his next one. I just hope it's one about people he respects and even admires like those who live in Empire Falls. I know that he's working more in Hollywood these days, and it would be a shame if he instead wrote another Straight Man, dealing this time with directors, producers, and stars, rather than the people who really deserve his attention.
Rating: 
Summary: Plodding disappointment from a great writer.
Review: I thought Straight Man was one of the best books I had read, so I had high hopes for Empire Falls. But here the subtlety is gone.
Whereas in Straight Man, Russo could fit three meanings into one sentence, here he needs four sentences for one minor point.
After a marvelous prologue, the book moves into an omniscient narrator for each of the characters, and Russo just doesn't have the same deft touch with it as he had with the brilliant first person in Straight Man.
It's never clear whether the narrator is adopting the point of view of the subject character or keeping a distance. I doubt that these characters are this literary, and make such broad philosophical and psychological conclusions at the rate Russo has them thinking. But the best word I can think of is "clunky."
Here's one example. After establishing that the restaurant is serving Hoisin sauce on Chinese night, Russo talks about the previous owner of the restaurant:
"It was also his firm conviction that there wasn't much point in fighting a world war if you were going to come home and start serving things in hoisin sauce -- whatever that was. That was the sort of thing you'd do if you lost the damn war. (Roger would never have made the distinction between the Japanese, with whom we'd been engaged in armed conflict, and the Chinese, with whom we had not.)"
I think the joke is clear by the first sentence, but it is certainly clear by the second. This happens throughout and really slows the enjoyment. Perhaps Russo's too ambitious, and had too many characters and character nuances to point out. He certainly wasn't patient enough to let the nuances reveal themselves.
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