Rating: 
Summary: A betrayal of a detailed characterisation
Review: THIS book is wonderfully descriptive. If you are into descriptive writing you will love the style. The critics obviously love the style without regard to the content. Having spent such a long time and effort describing in great detail the characters of the two main protaganists and their respective journeys, the end of the book is an unbelieveable cop out. Our male hero, who goes by the name of Inman, having made the decision he is tired of the Civil War, and that there is no way he is going back to the front having spent time in hospital recovering from a wound nobody expected him to survive, walks home. When he gets to his beloved Cold Mountain, he is reunited with his sweetheart. What is so irritating is that Frazier has spent so much time telling us that our hero is good at fighting and that by taking good care is a survivor. Then, Frazier has him become careless to the point where Inman takes an injudicious risk that is inconsistent with the characterisation developed throughout the book. Frazier has him take this risk when he now has more to live for than ever before. It is simply not credible. I feel that this is just an incredibly lazy device to finish the book. It must have been at the behest of an editor who not being into such descriptive writing is bored with the length and wants it to end.
Rating: 
Summary: Charles Frazier is a gifted writer!
Review: Cold Mountain is the best book I have read in years. This is not a civil war book. It as human a story as Crime and Punishment and Grapes of Wrath. Inman's struggles against both the elements and civilization are profound. Ada's awakening to the pulse of nature never captured in her sketches is heartwarming. I love how Frazier makes it clear that war is no place for a man of conscious. I recommend this book strongly!
Rating: 
Summary: From a great start it's all down hill.
Review: If you like Ken Burns version of American history, or wish to know the value of a plot outline this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful surprise
Review: I had decided early on not to read this book based on a review I read or the early hype--I don't remember. But someone gave me a copy, and I resolved to at least give it a try. I was hooked after the first chapter. Frazier writes beautifully, about people and the world they inhabit. His observations were of as much interest to me as the story--or the stories--and the story is compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly beautiful prose.
Review: A friend loaned me Cold Mountain last month, and when I started the book, I initially thought the narrative a bit slow and heavy-handed. But once into it, Frazier's hauntingly beautiful prose held me spellbound, and I fought for time during the day when I could return to it. Like a difficult text, I sometimes found that I had to read and then reread passages, but with Frazier it wasn't so much to improve comprehension as it was to savor how wonderfully well he told his tale. Although forewarned the ending would disappoint me, it did not. I think it ended only as it could have; but for me, the story was secondary to the beauty of the language with which it was told.
Rating:
Summary: YAWN
Review: This was honestly the most boring book I have ever read in my life. Like wading through Jell-O, slow, heavy, never-ending. I can't believe it's so popular.
Rating: 
Summary: Sip it slowly
Review: Cold Mountain is not a page turner. In fact, it made me want to linger on the page to soak in each new scene as it unfolded. Frazier does a masterful job of using Inman's journey to introduce us to very uncommon people in common packages. Every turn in the trail unfolds another fascinating character molded by his or her own unique life story. I have to admit, I actually found myself angered by the ending. I slammed the book shut. Call me a sentimentalist, but it was not the ending I was hoping and looking for. If you're looking for action and plot twists, go read Clancy. If you see a book as a journey and not a goal, I would highly recommend Cold Mountain.
Rating:
Summary: A majestic, magical and moving transport to another time.
Review: After many recommendations by friends, and the understandable fame of the novel, I read Cold Mountain in a kind of literary hush. I have not been so moved by the beauty of language in many years - since I first read Faulkner. There was a kind of personal, historic, and environmental reverence to Mr. Frazier's writing that in no way proved to be dissonant or fragmented. On all counts Cold Mountain is an integrated, organic novel of love in all of its raminfications. I was in New Orleans during my reading of the last chapters of the book and was so moved by the "procession" toward the end that I eschewed my usual hedonism to stay in bed and read the book to its conclusion, at which point I dissolved into tears and called my lover.
Rating:
Summary: 10 STARS!
Review: Simply the best book I have ever read. A wannabe writer of sorts myself, I now feel totally inadequate to the task. Mr. Frazier's novel will move your heart and soul like never before. Cold Mountain is better than anything Faulkner did in his prime and time will prove it a true classic to be read by future generations.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely in my "Top Ten of All Time" that I have read..
Review: An excellent book, couldn't put it down once I started. Congratulations to Mr. Frazier.
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