Rating: 
Summary: War is hell not just for the soldiers.
Review: This novel has an intense impact; its power is as much in its tone as its strong characters and setting. An injured Confederate soldier determines that war is just too pointless (not that he had ever been a hawk to begin with) and decides to trek home to Cold Mountain, perhaps to figure out the nature of his relationship with a woman named Ada. In his trek, Inman encounters some of the sleaziest and oddest characters I've read in a long time, but none of them fall into stereotype or cliched colloquialisms (I'll never feel the same way about goats again). Meanwhile on Cold Mountain, Ada struggles with being a former lady of leisure whose newly orphaned status renders her penniless and essentially useless for operating her father's farm--until task-oriented Ruby comes along and makes her toe the line.
Rating:
Summary: good book - I recommend it
Review: Despite the somewhat slow pace and myriad use of minute and detailed descriptions, I found this to be a rich story and a very moving tale and I was sorry when the novel was over. The author's reading of his novel in this audiobook was one of the best I've ever heard. I couldn't help but keep listening to find out what would happen next in Inman's adventurous journey home and to find out how Ada and Ruby were getting along on the farm. Someday when I have time, I hope to read the book in print.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful style, no plot.
Review: Baeutiful, lush style. Too bad there's no plot, just a long series of episodes that begin at the beginning and end at - well, that just end.
Rating:
Summary: Tale of Two Tired North Carolinians
Review: Cold Mountain is an interesting story, not of the Civil War, but of two people trying to survive in the midst of the Civil War. The book is widely noted for its imagery, which in my opinion was a bit overdone. If Frazier had reduced the amount of labored poetry just a smidgen, this would truly be a five-star novel. It's a good story about a man and woman of the rural south whose love for each other sees them each through a gauntlet of troubles, that they might be reunited. It deserves to be read because it is a unique perspective on life during the period, partly based on true characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply Beautiful
Review: A civil war age odyssey that somehow tackles the contrast of humanity's goodness and evil without being cliche. Wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting prose, but too weird to believe
Review: Although I enjoyed Frazier's prose for the first hundred pages or so, that alone was not sufficient. I could not buy into the storyline for this book. The characters that Inman meets along his walk back home just were too strange to believe. Maybe one such odd character would have been acceptable, but this book is full of them. The ending was predictable and therefore rather boring. I picked up this book after reading a lot of nonfiction on the Civil War (McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom and Shelby Foote's 3 vol series Civil War: A Narrative) in the hope of getting a more personal view of the common person's life during the war, especially in the south. This book did not fulfill my hopes in these respects. I finished not believing much that happened as really being true to everyday life in the south. Cold Mountain is a fantasy written in a historical setting.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible and Boring
Review: I'll be brief.. This is a horrible book. It gets negative 5 stars. Intensely boring. Strange for such a short read. I found myself waiting...hoping...praying for the characters to be killed off. Sadly, they mostly evade that fate, in the most unbelievable, unconvincing plot twists. Twists, that although weird, fail to ignite any enthusiasm for the storyline or evoke any emotion for the characters. People seem to enjoy this tripe, but I just don't get it. And I'm very glad of that fact.
Rating:
Summary: best fiction I've read in 20 years
Review: The other reviews say it all. I rarely read modern fiction because it's just so bad, but this one stands out as a must read, enjoyable cover to cover.
Rating:
Summary: Great Writing
Review: I don't feel the need to add to the many reviews that already lies in your web pages; all I want to do here is to let you know that this edition may require a magnifying glass for some because the print is so small. Other than that, I stand way back in awe of Mr. Frazier's fresh spin on language. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating and gripping journey home from the war
Review: This is a must read for anyone who enjoys the historical period of the civil war. And also for those who enjoy colorful, complete, and descriptive writing. Frazier captures each and ever frame of this journey and pulls you in with his beautiful and haunting descriptions.
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