Rating: 
Summary: STIFFLING, SUFFOCATING, GIMME AIR, QUICK!
Review: If you liked Smiley's 1000 Acres, you'll like this book. I liked neither. I felt in both books like I was going through someone's dirty laundry basket ... there was nothing uplifting...nothing to capture the imagination. The "heroine" of A Map of the World was truly unlikable to me. She was self-absorbed and not anyone I could care about. Her children were despicable, and her husband a tight-lipped drone. The only reason I give the book even 3 points is that it opens with a bang. The action that gets the whole story in motion happens more quickly than in any other novel I have read. Perhaps that's why the rest of the book seems so slow and tedious. I might add, If you like books with a little "poetry" in them, or books that leave something to the imagination (such as The God of Small Things), skip this one. Everything's laid out in tedious and unending detail.
Rating: 
Summary: Hamilton's thoughtful novel evoked identity and admiration
Review: Hamilton's characters, passionate, poignant, and pitiable, deal with social issues that threaten current American life. These people suffer enormous tragedy and survive by redefining their lives and strengthening their moral fiber. I applaud Jane Hamilton's well written novel.
Rating:
Summary: Untrustworthy narrators and bad writing
Review: Jane Hamilton's A MAP OF THE WORLD offers us two narrators, each rather unlikeable. One is self-absorbed, erratic, and oblivious to her impact on others--not to mention highly critical, even contemptuous, of the foibles of ordinary folk. When she turns righteous and says she is learning about grace and forgiveness, just what she is supposedly learning (and why) utterly mystifies. For instance, at the conclusion of the book she learns to forgive her husband and trust the strong bonds of that forgiveness; but it is altogether bewildering that she even thinks her husband needs forgiving--he who has not been presented as betraying or hurting her in any way, who has given up his way of life in part to rescue her from jail and to protect their marriage--much less that her forgiveness constitutes some cosmic lesson. He, in turn, is a about as self-absorbed, in his own way, a workaholic drone incompetent not only in personal relationships but basic matters like feeding and bathing his children. IF this no
Rating:
Summary: An example of what's wrong with the literary industry
Review: I suppose voracious literati who think of themselves as au courant must have a hard time with the fact that masterworks do not appear several times a month. Why are they reading all these books if most of them are pedestrian, at best, and no doubt evanescent? A fair amount of self-deception must be inevitable, so they can convince themselves they are not wasting their time, that their love of current fiction bespeaks something virtuous and valuable. Why else does nearly every paperback novel carry a raft of quotes proclaiming it monumental and extraordinary? Jane Hamilton's A MAP OF THE WORLD seems to me the benficiary of such errant evaluation. One of the two narrators is self-absorbed, erratic, and oblivious to her impact on others--while also highly critical, even contemptuous, of the foibles of ordinary folk. When she turns righteous and learns about grace and forgiveness, just what she is supposedly learning and why utterly mystifies. For instance, at the conclusion of the book she is lea
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent.
Review: Hamilton does an excellent job of exploring how personalities are interpreted by others and altered in the prism of extreme events. She captures the realness of everyday life while still illuminated the facts that make a day life. Book of Ruth by Hamilton is even better
Rating:
Summary: Climbing in to the Heart of an American
Review: I have never before read a novel that left me feeling as raw. As the story unfolded it felt so real and compelling that I found the feelings of dismay spill out in to my real life. Profoundly horrifying, the plot gets to the heart of a issue as outrageous as the Salem witch trials, but largely ignored by media and ranting law enforcement, church leaders and parents in today's America. Cases like Dale Akiki in San Diego and the Kelly case in Edenton, South Carolina, prove that what happens to the family in A Map of the World is exactly what could happen to anyone in our country. The amazing thing about this novel, however, is that the powerful plot is almost eclipsed by the beauty of the telling. I read some paragraphs several times, marveling at the prose. Add that to an accurate take on the private thoughts a crisis can evoke, and you approach genious. Bravo
Rating:
Summary: Depressing and uplifting at the same time.
Review: After becoming engrossed in Hamilton's, The Book of RUth, I was hungry for more work by this author. A compelling tale of how horrible circumstances in your life can shape and mold you and let you become the person you are, tells the story of survival on many levels. Alice not only survives the downward spiral of events in her life, but she finds the true meaning in her life of what's important and what can help her survive from day to day and then ultimately, live her life fully and completely
Rating:
Summary: Truer than you may realize.
Review: Having known people who have lived through this horror it amazes me that Ms. Hamilton can hit at the heart of this American justice/societal problem. As a society we need to rethink who we comdemn without a trial
Rating:
Summary: In the tradition of afternoon "soaps."
Review: Try to imagine one of the most horrible circumstances in which a young mother can find herself: she is babysitting when a child in her care accidentally drowns. Now try to imagine every conceivable disaster which can result from that one accident. That's what happens in Map of the World. No horrific event is left out. No amount of hand-wringing trauma is enough. No action on the part of the main character can make things "right." This is not a novel. It is a soap opera
Rating:
Summary: A verbal exposure of the rawest human emotion
Review: I loved this book. It gripped me in a very differ-
ent than the way in which most "page-turners" do.
Jane Hamilton explores the most basic of human emotions in a way I've never experienced in a book.
I'm also originally from an area of Wisconsin very
close in character, name and locale to Prarie Cen-
ter, which made the book hit even closer to
home for me.
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