Rating: 
Summary: Exquisite
Review: So many authors hammer you over the head with their writing (Tom Wolfe's latest comes to mind) that it's refreshing to see an author use subtlety to make an even more lasting impression. This is a beautiful written, wonderfully paced book that unfolds in a natural way. Seemingly ephemeral, this book will leave you stunned by its haunting beauty.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Cunningham's book swept me up -- a wonderful read: as others have said, an homage to his mentor Woolf, and beautifully written on its own terms.
Rating:
Summary: An astonishing book
Review: Every now and then, I read a book that becomes a lifelong companion. THE HOURS is such a book. I read it quickly, then turned it over and have begun to read it again, slowly this time. There's not a false step in it. Michael Cunningham is magnificent, and this book is his best yet. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: A rare book
Review: Virginia Woolf had the courage to write about life as it feels to the living. Until I read The Hours, I thought she was the only one who could do this.
Rating: 
Summary: So Very Disappointing
Review: An incredibly dull, stagnant book with very suburban prose. Cunningham follows around three women, one of whom is Virginia Woolf, and riffs on literature, memory, and "Mrs. Dalloway." But nothing really happens here, though Cunningham's prose is lovely enough to carry the book's first third; characters aren't well developed, the prose grows wearisome, and he's no match for the master. I don't understand these hyperbolic reviews; I'd rather read something that takes more real risks.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent !
Review: Michael Cunningham's 'Hours' is brilliant! This is the best novel I've read in a long time and I read a lot of fiction. Of course I've always loved Virginia Woolf's fiction and so I am biased by M.C.'s homage to her but he has managed to capture her stream of consciousness style in our times which is an impressive feat. Read this book if you've read Mrs. Dalloway, you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: HEART-WRENCHINGLY BEAUTIFUL
Review: THE HOURS is unquestionably the best book I've read in years. The book reads like it was written by an angel. Heart-wrenchingly beautiful, haunting, moving, and intelligent.
Rating:
Summary: I can't remember reading anything better!
Review: I heard about this book on National Public Radio. I ordered it from amazon.com. I read it in one night and plan to read it again...and again...and again. I can't remember reading such vivid and moving prose. Although the three stories weren't truly connected, I never had trouble making the transitions. I liked this book more than any other I've read this year...and I read a lot! The characters are real and alive and full of human foibles. They're rich and introspective and full of wonderment. I look forward to more books by Michael Cunningham.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant, brilliant book
Review: Michael Cunningham's new book is breathtakingly beautiful, haunting, aching. It's full of life--its beauties and its many horrors, from social events gone wrong to plagues and bone-crushing despair. Gorgeously imagined, observed with the eye of a scientist who loves nature as much as himself, and as restrained as the best poetry or painting, THE HOURS is proof positive that literature has its own kind of necessary intelligence, without which we cannot hope for the survival of our culture. This is the kind of book that has to humble anyone who even aspires to writing.
Rating:
Summary: A dead-on evocation of the intertwined lives of three women
Review: This book moved me to tears more than once. The power of this author's writing comes through not only in his brilliant ending but in his understanding of the hearts and souls of the novel's three women - Laura Brown, Clarissa Dalloway, and the inimitable Virginia Woolf herself. At times I had to stop reading because I felt as if Michael Cunningham's grasp of these womens' souls was so true that it was almost eery. He writes elliptically of the shadow lives that many of us feel are out there - the lives we might be living had we not answered that one phone call, chosen that certain dress, turned down that street instead of this one. He is one of the few writers I trust completely; he puts his own soul on the line in his graceful, beautiful fiction and, consequently, he cuts to the heart of what it means to be human.
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