Rating: 
Summary: disobedience=disapointment
Review: This is the first time that I have read anything by Hamilton. Maybe it just takes some getting used to, but there seemed to be pages of rambling that had nothing to do with the core of the tale. I found myself continuing to read the novel soley to finish it, not because I was consumed by the story line. While the book was readable, it was a struggle to finish the 176 pages that seemed to lead nowhere.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I have read all of Hamilton's other books and loved them, so I was disappointed when I had to force myself to get through this laborious book. None of the characters were likable, nor was the story line exciting enough to keep my interest sustained. The story had potential had the relationships between mother and son, mother and lover, and mother and father been more developed, but I was left wanting more dialogue, more confrontation, instead of listening to the son prattle on and on about his adolescent angst. If you're a Hamilton fan, wait for the paperback version or get it from your library - save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: My First Jane Hamilton Experience
Review: I read the summary of this book and it sounded good. Then I started it and, I don't know if this applies to all of Jane Hamilton's books, discovered that she goes on page after page of rambling. This would have been a better book if she wouldn't spend pages rambling about things that usually have nothing to do with the progressment of the plot. The only character I found interesting was Elvira. This book would have had a higher rating if the author just stuck to the story and left the randomless thought behind, but by then it would have ended up a short story.
Rating:
Summary: An obsessive book you can't put down
Review: Narrated by the oldest son in a family of four, Henry discovers his mother, Beth (Liza38) is having an affair. He becomes obssessed with her affair and at the same time, narrates how the affair affects the family throughout the year. There's Elvira, who is obssessed with becoming a Civil War re-enactor. There is his dad, Kevin Shaw, who lives in a different world of his own ~~ wrapped up in his teaching career and students. And there's Henry himself, in the midst of discovering first love with one of his oldest childhood friends. Hamilton does a great job interweaving the characters together throughout this book and she does a great job with the descriptions ~~ you feel that you're there. But after awhile, Henry's obssession with his mother begins to wax and wane ~~ and you start thinking to yourself, this kid needs to get a life. It all starts innocently enough by accidentally reading Beth's emails, but after awhile, without any confrontation between any of the characters ~~ it seems to drag on and on. I have read one other of her books and enjoyed that one much more ~~ The Book of Ruth ~~ at least you are drawn into the characters' lives. But this book ~~ it drags on after a certain point and never really picks up again. By the time I was finished with it, I was relieved. I'm not saying this is a bad book to read ~~ it just isn't what I thought it would be. I rate it 3 stars for the superb writing ~~ not for the plot itself. I'm glad I read it ~~ but I won't read it again. It's not going to rank as a classic in my personal library.
Rating: 
Summary: After Several Sensational Hits....This One Misses the Mark
Review: I have enjoyed Ms. Hamilton's previous novels for their compeling emotional power, the richness of her characterizations, and the poetry of her language. However, I had to wonder why she had no close friends, nor an editor to point out to her that this work has some fatal flaws. To get to the point, the problem is with the voice of this narrator. The voice is so absolutely unbelievable that the novel became unreadable to me. It is supposedly written in the voice of Henry Shaw, a 17 year old protagonist when the story's action occurs, now writing his recollections 10 years later. First of all it is written in first person, present tense, and seems as if it is written by the 17 year old himself (only on the book jacket do they explain that he is in his 20's when writing this story.) Either way it doesn't work. His voice is cynical, wordly, clearly saavy and too droll....it HAS to be the voice of a 40-something year old woman. It is really Henry's mother's story and it is her voice writing the novel, but by faulty ventriloquism she tries to tell the story through the son. This is an attempt to trick us into forgiving the "mother's voice" for its self-obessesion, its self-absorbtion, and its lack of real insight and "bite". If the voice is transposed to the 17 year old, then we are not going to notice how boring and self-involved the mother's story is?? The author goes on terrible tangents and bores us with her obessive interest in Mrs. Shaw, a character who is not likeable and doesn't deserve so much focus. The son, too,is not likeable and certainly not believable. Add to that, the secondary plot about Henry's sister which interrupts the flow every time the narrative begins to show any movement (which is rarely!. This sub-plot is about a pre-teen lost in her Civil War dreams and obviously pre-lesbian sublimations. Her name is Elvira. COME ON, Ms. Hamilton, really! I had to put the book down before finishing it. I really can't recommend this book to anyone! Please save yourself the frustration of reading a novel that should have been scrapped.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Jane Hamilton Winner!
Review: What happens when two socially conscious and educated people, still nostalgic for the sixties, get married, and move from rural Vermont to Chicago to raise kids? Jane Hamilton offers one possible scenario. The narrator is the 17-year-old son, Henry Shaw, who discovers, by way of the E-mail account he set up for her, that his mother, Beth, is having an affair. Through her letters to her lover and her best friend we come to have a secondary narrator as well and we see a different Beth from wife and mother. The overall tone of the book in the mouth of the son is light and deceptively casual, alternately raucous, hysterical, and rational, and one wonders whether Henry is really affected at all. Then we remember that he is a teenager, albeit mature for his age, trying to grow up, to deal with his own sexual yearnings and the desire to fit somewhere in the world. When confronted with his mother's indiscretions, his father's ineptitude, his younger sister's obsession with the Civil War, and his worries about her sexuality, he feels that he is the only "normal" one and that it is he holding the family together. He deals with the situation with humor and self-deprecation, with an 'I don't care what happens to my crazy family' attitude, and occasionally defiance. Hardly anyone in the family notices, at least for awhile. From folk music bands and country dances, to first love in a religious summer camp, to fortune tellers and Wisconsin farms, the family plods along, yet each in their separate worlds, until they gather at the mother of all Civil War reenactments. That is when Hamilton lowers the boom. Her timing is immaculate. It is there that the entire family is faced with a wake-up call, and some hard truths have to be faced. The Shaw family are very real. They are like people we know and maybe a little like ourselves. Once again, Hamilton demonstrates that she can adroitly translate the crises of American families, as well as the roles of and relationships between the sexes into great literature.
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Summary: Wonderful writer - this one didn't quite work for me, though
Review: Jane Hamilton is such a wonderful writer that even a book which is less than her best holds many delights - however, this one didn't quite work for me. I'm used to sinking into a Jane Hamilton novel and getting lost in a believable world and I didn't really feel that way about this book. I liked the fact that the story was narrated by the teenage son in the family and he was an engaging fellow. But other characters left me disinterested and the family dynamucs didn't quite ring true to me. I felt as though certain plot developments were there simply because they were timely - Civil War re-enactments,an affair cemented with online love letters and communication, etc. If you're a fan of Jane Hamilton's writing, you may still want to read this one and add it to your collection. Other readers might want to pass this one up.
Rating:
Summary: American Mediocrity
Review: At first glance, this book may appear intruguing. At second glance it may entice you into picking it up and exploring. The superficial attraction you may have to the characters; to the seemingly "intricate" family plot. It is only at your third eyeing that the book seeps into a soppy, sit-comish, bland story line. Very, very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Jane Hamilton novel yet
Review: I was pleasantly surprised with Jane Hamilton's latest novel, Disobedience. Beth and Kevin Shaw's teenage son, Henry, is faced with knowing things about his mother that he can't share with anyone. While sneakily reading his mother's e-mail, he discovers that she is having an affair. For an entire year, Henry works through his anger, his disappointment and in some cases, his jealousy, as his mother works through her guilt and desire for a different life. The supporting characters in this novel are tremendously enjoyable, from Henry's tomboy, Civil War re-enactor sister, Elvira, to his first girlfriend, Lily, and keep the plot moving along at a fairly quick pace. For most of the book, I kept wondering when Henry would finally confront his mother and when he'd "get over it." Henry asked himself the same question in the novel, which I thought was entertaining. I loved Beth's book club and Henry's analysis of female book groups and would even recommend this to book groups for a potentially intense debate over infidelity.
Rating:
Summary: I love Jane Hamilton, but. . .
Review: I have read all of Jane Hamilton's books from the very beginning (even before Oprah told us to), but this one was a struggle for me. The premise of the story is timely. Henry Shaw discovers his mother is having an online relationship with a man she met in person at a family wedding. As a teen-ager he is going through his own personal struggles with the world as he watches his mother change before his eyes. He reads her e-mails to and from her lover by secretly accessing her internet account. He and his younger sister, a lesbian in the making who lives her life as a Civil War soldier while fighting the inevitable (growing breasts and feminine beauty) actually travel with Beth Shaw to meet the lover. I found the book interesting enough to continue to read but only after coming to terms with Henry's constant changes in his reference to his mother. He calls her many names to mirror the many roles she plays--wife, daughter, mother, musician, adulterer. It is a story about feelings, confusion, deception, and even love. Although I am a big fan of Jane Hamilton and will continue to look forward to her books, I liked her first three a lot better than this one.
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