A Map of the World

Rating:
Summary: Flat ending!
Review: This book was good up until Alice got out! It was built up for something better and then bombed! I was hoping that Howard would get on with his life and steer clear of Alice. She bothered me a great deal. Her character didn't seem to be fit to be around kids if she is that spacy. I picked up this book because I loved The Book of Ruth but this one disappointed me!

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!!!!
Review: This book was amazing. I read it as a school project and i never realized how much a book could effect me. Jane Hamilton is a very talented writer and A Map of the World appeals to so many people. I really enjoyed all the characters and how they grew in this book. For my class we have to write a essay on the book and all the key points. I feel so lucky to have stumbled on this book! I reccomend it for anyone!

Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: I find it very difficult to get through half of this book. I have put it down and picked it up more times than I care to mention. It is a waste of time. Awful book...

Rating:
Summary: 1994 Best Seller Still Reads Well A Decade Later!
Review: The lawsuits against day care providers based on the testimony of children have subsided, but this book does not seem in the least dated as a result. Beside being the defendant, Alice is one of a number of wonderfully drawn characters--an Ann Arbor, back to nature, '60's woman with all the sensibilities and naivite that such would imply. Her tragedy could be ours and yet, along the way, she finds a messy kind of redemption which seems very real and which sustains at least this reader's faith in the human condition.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed emotions, or lack thereof...
Review: I use this as the title for my review because that is the very problem I had with the book. I finished it several weeks ago, and I after I finished, I waited to feel that wistful ache I often feel after I've just completed a fantastic novel. But it never came.

The first half /two thirds is like watching a car accident that you can't turn your eyes from. The story is tragic but unlike "The House of Sand and Fog" by Dubus, I didn't think that there was as much foreboding and a sense of the tragedy to come. So I had a problem with where the author leads us after the first half. Frankly, it became a little dull, but perked up at the end as best as a novel of this subject matter could.

Hamilton nails the nature of love on the head; complex married love. Additionally, she uses intelligent and strange analogies for big concepts like love and death, which most authors fail to do, so I loved her writing style.


Rating:
Summary: Slow, but intricate
Review: This book was not one of my favorites. It was slow, and sometimes painful, to read. The characters, though, were beautfilly done, with both depth and vision, as well as the background. If you can push aside the difficult writing style, then try this book. Otherwise, skip it.

Rating:
Summary: Can't finish
Review: I can't finish the book. There are parts of good writing by the author but the story is unnecessarily draggy and depressing. Alice always just look at the negative side of things, bemoaning her life and that people around her has robbed her of something. For example, she would notice how ugly a person is than anything else. I find her attitude to Nellie particularly selfish and rude. Her daughters are supposed to be difficult to handle, yet Nellie has helped her while she drowns herself in self-pity. I just feel that I have better way to spend my time than to read and feel annoyed and depressed about Alice's life.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult Read.
Review: One moment of inattention, or was it pure and simply an accident that could have happened to anyone? Whatever it was, the lives of a community were changed and the dreams of two families went up in smoke. One of them found a way to continue their lives, but for the other family, they spiraled into a life of emotional poverty. The frightening lesson in this book is that it is hard to imagine that any of us would be immune to this disaster. It could probably happen to practically anyone, and just its possibility opens up the fact of our vulnerabilities. It made me think that I was on a precipice or a knife edge, facing disaster with just a misstep as I tried to go about my daily, routine tasks.