Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable but needs more depth
Review: I enjoyed the book but found that I didn't develop an attachment to the characters. They were interesting but didn't receive the depth of discussion they deserved.
Rating: 
Summary: A voyage through culture, nightmares, and freedom
Review: This novel, written like voice of one's old, Hatian grandmother weaving a sad fairy tale, is about many things. It is about the clash of cultures and language that all imigrants encounter. It's about being removed from the only mother one has known, to be raised by the woman who is. It is about the legacy of abuse that can circulate, even in a family of women. But most importantly, "Breath, Eyes, Memory" is about what happens when we have a family tradition that we find hurtful, but find ourselves simultaneously unable to break away from participating in. I was intrigued by the legacy of pain in this novel, which travelled through the slave roots of the Caco Family and through the two generations of Papa Doc's and Tonton Macoutes which have haunted the people of Haiti. This novel is moving and powerful. No other has shown me how easily practices of incest and violence can infect generation after generation, if no one stops to question it, or to declare very simply, that it stops here.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: I agree with the synopsis of this book. The beginning is lyrical and magical, but as the book goes on, the characters are never fully developed. And while what happened to Sophie's mother was terrible, the writing just didn't seem to evoke my sympathy. As an aside, I live in Providence, and there was absolutely no evocation of that city at all. What made Joseph love it?For a book that will haunt the reader, I suggest Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy.
Rating: 
Summary: COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN
Review: I felt that anyone who has a mother-daughter relationship would relate to this story. It's a powerful, true-to-life experience that any woman could relate to. I couldn't, and for that matter, wouldn't, put it down. It took me a day and a half to read this. I've read most of Oprah's books, and found that this was among the best. Don't miss out! This is highly recommended---
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing - Why did Oprah choose this one????
Review: This could have been a good book if it had been completed. It skipped all over the place, never fully developing the characters. I was interested in the Haitian culture and I was interested in the women, but it just did not flow. We jumped into the middle of the next step of their lives without knowing how we got there.
Rating:
Summary: Textbook characters
Review: I found this book more of a lecture on Haitian culture and characters who serve as "types" rather than people with complexity. If the setting weren't related to Haiti, would it still be considered such a good novel?
Rating:
Summary: It has the potential to become a classic.
Review: I read Breath, Eyes, Memory when it first came out. The book is rich with female experience and generational interconnectedness. At the time I read the book, I was taking a graduate literature course. Because Danticat's text was so engaging, I persuaded my professor to let me include Breath, Eyes, Memory in the paper I was writing for his class. I really wanted to be one of the first to write about this author because I knew she was going to be an important writer, both for her emphasis on women's issues and for her treatment of multicultural concerns. To be so young, Danticat has wonderful insights. I have also read Krik Krak and stand firm on my belief that Edwidge Danticat is going to be one of the most important emerging writers of the 21st Century.
Rating:
Summary: eye opening and emotional
Review: I have to admit, this is the first in the book club I've read. I'm not sure why I chose this one to start with but something in the way you reviewed it spoke to me. It's not just a book about a Haitian family but of all families and how things are passed from generation to generation. It's up to each of us to decide what we want to be passed down to our own children and what needs to end. This is a very hard thing to do because we all want our parents approval, even as grownups.It may not be as serious as what Sophie's family suffered, but I think all families are disfuctional in one way are another. As children, we are all affected by the emotional or physical hangups our parents have. As grownups with our own children, it's up to us to see that they are not past on.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and insightful book.
Review: As I read this book, I thought of the many women who find themselves in bondage to invisible chains that hold them prisoner. Seeing behavior patterns as distructive is a good step, but taking the courage to break those behavior patterns so we do not pass them on to our children often takes a miracle. I minister to many women who seem doomed to repeat their mother's life. They do not know how to break free or are unwilling to pay the price to break free. Sophie took great risk and paid a great price that Bridgette would not have to experience the same "testing" that was required of her, her mother, and all the women before them. A wonderful book reflecting the hard life and the beauty of Haitians.
Rating:
Summary: Easy, quick reading. A eye-opening story about motherhood.
Review: I love books that take you on a journey though ones feelings and emotions. Breath, Eyes, Memory does that...and more.
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