Rating: 
Summary: Never read John Irving
Review: I had never read John Irving before, I was pleasantly surprised! The characters are completely captivating! AND- you always know it's a good book when you hate for it to end!
Rating: 
Summary: Reading it for a year...
Review: Which is what it felt like as I desperately tried to get through the text. Here's the strange thing, it is not as if John Irving isn't a good writer. There is plenty of character description so that you can clearly see each character. Likewise, there were genuine moments of levity and terror in the book. Unfortunately, 99% of the characters were not likeable and frankly, not that interesting. The flow of the book is interrupted several times by separate stories and because the main story isn't strong enough to enthrall the reader, it's with some annoyance you chug through these interruptions. This following statement is ENTIRELY subjective but I'm an EXTREMELY easy audience. Authors can easily manipulate my sentimentality but Irving fails to touch any cord within me by making the character delivery (of what is supposed to be devastating information to the reader) in the form of a story within the story. Such a technique would work if the reader wasn't totally distracted thinking about how much the characters need therapy to better deal with their dysfunctional forms of communication. All the main characters are writers but they seem incapable of truly communicating how they feel. Absurd! The entire novel lacks believability and has an ending clean out of a nighttime soap. Seeing as this book was highly recommended to me I was utterly disappointed. A good read if your expectations aren't too high and you don't have very much else to do ...and someone else buys you the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: I'm surprised that many reviewers recommend this book as a good one for first time readers of John Irving. As a first time reader of John Irving, this book might be my last. It wasn't the prose or even the characters that bothered me, but the foundation of the story itself. As a mother of a 16-year-old boy, I find it utterly implausible that anyone could believe that Marion would seduce someone that reminded her of her dead son. Do we have reason to believe that she had fantasies of incest? Did her perverted husband have reason to believe it? You don't have to be a prude to find the multitude of references to masterbation and to the size of Ruth's breasts tiresome. This book is heavy on sex, and light on reality.
Rating:
Summary: Wish I was a widow from this book...
Review: Widow for a year was one of those books you keep reading and hoping that it will finally hook you. This book never did. I was bored out of mind and found it better that tylenol pm to get to sleep. Please don't make it into a movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Written about writers writing about wrighters wrighting &...
Review: This book was definitely a page turner. As usual, John Irving has twisted around the sexual humor in us all in leading us through the lives of one small family of writers. The drama in this book is so unreal that it might just be real and the details are so immaculate that I found my self thinking back to some of the first chapters where Irving had subtely foreshadowed what lay ahead. I always find it interesting when a male writer writes from a girl's perspectve because, in my opinion, they don't usually get it right on target. Although, Irving, like Wally Lamb in many ways, seemed to do a pretty good job capturing the feelings a girl/woman such as Ruth (main character) as well as his population of female readers. I have a newfound respect for the social circle of writers. How they tolerate the bad ones and worship the good ones. The only reason why i gave this book 4 stars was because I didn't like the end. It was the kind of end that bothers me but whether ot not you'll love the whole thing... I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Let's face it, the truth hurts.
Review: An intense novel is delivered to the reader with the certification of John Iring, Author. Not to be disappointed, the reader must expect to read about a dysfunctional family pivoting around a tragic car accident that killed the sons of the family. The memories of the accident can never be replaced by the birth of the girl, Ruth. She stands to be abandoned by her mother for no other reason than that the mother will not risk love to any other that may leave her. This sad, disgustingly selfish motive resonates throughout this extrordinarily unique and destructive tale of families gone all wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many unbelievable elements
Review: While I'm a great John Irving fan, A Widow for One Year was disappointing. As others have observed, it felt like several shorter books ungracefully cobbled into one. In particular the Amsterdam sequence, while interesting and well-observed, just did not fit and seemed merely like a way for Irving to pass on an intereting bit of traveling and research he'd done (presumably without witnessing a murder). Ruth and Hannah's friendship had no reality at all, particularly after Hannah's affair with Ruth's father. Ruth's marriage to Allan was about a one-paragraph deal, and as such, not believable. My brother pointed out another real anomaly: what are the chances in about 1950 that an Eastern family would have flown to Colorado for a ski vacation and rented a car (scene of Tim and Tom's accident)? Did Hertz or Avis even exist then? All in all, there were just too many elements like this that kept you from believing in the story or the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Another great Irving novel
Review: This is the 2nd Irving novel I have read (next to Cider House Rules which I loved so much) & I have to say I like this even better. Maybe because I could empathize more with the female character of both Ruth & her estranged mother, Marion. It breaks my heart to think how difficult it would have been for a 4 yr.old child to grow in a house with a family which has ceased to be one, long before she was born; & to live in the shadows of her dead brothers, living in the world of photographs - reliving each day their happy moments (which she never had) & memorizing the stories behind each picture by heart. I also find it would have been incomprehensible for such a young mind to be abandoned by her mother. & being a mother myself, I couldn't imagine how excruciatingly painful it was for Marion to lose both sons in an accident & live with its grief for the rest of your life. I commend John Irving for the very detailed storytelling he has done - once again. The details shown on each page transported me to Ruth's world & enabled me to join her continous pursuit for her own survival & happiness & her observance & sometimes involuntary witness of other people's search for their own happiness. True, as Ted Cole had once said, life's test is that sometimes, there's no place to pull over --- sometimes you can't stop --- & you just have to find a way to keep going.
Rating:
Summary: inferior Irving novel entertains
Review: Being a fan of John Irving I had high expectations of A Widow for One Year. And to an extent, the book delivered the goods. It is a rambling story (about a dysfunctional family, and their friends, as they cope with the tragic loss of two teenage boys) with memorable characters and dramatic scenes. And Irving's breezy writing story is, as always, very accessible - that is, it can just as easily be read in small chuncks (eg, while commuting) or in one sitting (eg, while at the beach). Yet I was disappointed with this novel. The story has many contrived elements (eg, it seems that all the characters become successful novelists without effort), and unlike some of Irving's best works ('Garp', 'Owen Meany', 'Son of a Circus') I felt A Widow for One Year had a disorganized, ill-conceived feel to it ... as if John Irving really didn't sweat the details. John Irving has done better, much better. I had thought of him as one of the best American authors of modern literature. But this novel is nothing more than popular fiction. Bottom line: enjoyable, but Irving 'newbies' should turn to his better works for a taste of his brilliance.
Rating:
Summary: The best JI book
Review: This is john irving's best book yet. He just gets better with age. And the cynics said that he couldn't write a woman!
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