Rating: 
Summary: What a great book!
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I felt that all of the characters were very well developed, as well as the realtionships between the characters. The section titles help the reader to keep track of the year the characters are in when the author flashes back or forward within the chapters. The only thing I felt was lacking was the development of the relationship between Ruth and Harry. This book left me wanting more, instead of waiting for it to end.
Rating: 
Summary: great book
Review: This book gave me a lot to think about. Although it had some flaws (the author did dwell on Ruth's chest way too much, for no apparent reason), most of the book was so gratifying that I am still thinking about the issues it raised. For anyone who is interested in writing, it is fantastic to see how Irving balances so many perspectives and how he creates stories-within-stories, since many of the characters in Irving's novel are also writers. While this might make people shake their heads and think, "Oh no, it's a writer writing about writers again," don't let this dissuade you from reading the book. Irving has such a feel for character development and a virtuosity with different styles that the book was a pleasure to read. He also is one of the few authors around today who is equally fascinated with love/romance and sex; most authors seem to focus on one or the other.
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Summary: I Love Irving
Review: Even the 158 lbs Marriage. This is my third Irving read/listen. I've shared the many touching moments with Garp, Homer, the spouse swapping 4-some and now Ruth. I love the way John Irving draws you in and then brings you to tears or belly laughter. I am always moved to identify and sympathize with the many characters of his books. They all have their own very special way of touching me. This Irving story is no exception. No book is flawless. Some works are not intended to be analyzed or evaluated for an all encompassing message or moral. With Irving I've always felt it's the ride not the destination that is the pay-off. Would highly recommend this book to women especially.
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Summary: Not his best but ...
Review: ... up there among them.'A Widow for One Year' is not as good as 'Cider House' but better then 'Son of The Circus'. The characters are, as always in novels by Irving, strong and 'believable', and the humor is very enjoyable. We also get the good mix of happiness and disaster, characterized by Irving
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Summary: My favorite Irving Book
Review: Like all of Irving's books, A Widow for One Year is hard to encapsulate in a short summary. It centers around Ruth Cole, a famous author and daughter of a famous (and philandering) children's author. Ruth's mother disappeared when she was 4 years old, but not before having an affair (sanctioned by her father) with a 16-year-old boy, who eventually becomes Ruth's friend as an adult and who never stops loving Ruth's mother. The story is about Ruth's career, relationships with men, and eventual coming to terms with being abandoned. But of course, that's an oversimplification, and ignores the Amsterdam prostitute who has a clever way of letting customers secretly watch her have sex with other customers, the ripped up pieces of pornographic drawings that blow all over Long Island's east end, the death of Ruth's two brothers before she was born, not to mention Ruth's husband, son, and promiscuous best friend. I read this book on a trip across the US that included a 5-hour delay on the tarmac of Dallas airport where I had to change planes. I hardly noticed the wait, and when I finally got to my hotel room at 2:30am, I wanted to read some more before going to sleep. In other words, I loved this book. The characters are multi-dimensional and fully believable. I found myself relating to nearly all of them, even the ones I didn't like very much. Irving has his usual fun telling stories within stories, and creating ridiculous and zany situations that make perfect sense in the context of the story. There are so many details that would stand out as "significant" in other stories, but in this book are just part of Irving's attempt to help you really see the action and understand the characters. I'll have to go back and re-read The Cider House Rules, but right now, this is my favorite of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but Flawed
Review: John Irving has again given us a sprawling, multi-generational saga of personal heartache and how family members come to grips with tragedy. Like many of his other novels, the characters in Widow for A Year suffer extreme loss, and yet this novel does not kill off characters as abruptly and carelessly as some of Irving's former novels (like the plane crash in Hotel New Hampshire, or the devastating car crash in Garp). Essentially the themes of the novel are grief and sex, not necessarily in that order. The novel begins with 4 year old Ruth Cole walking in on her mother, who is in bed with a teenage writer's assistant hired by her estranged husband Ted, a writer of cildren's books. The mother, Marion, is overwhelmed with grief from the loss of her teenage sons in a car accident that predated the action in the novel, and Irving skillfully fills in a few details about the crash for much of the book, until Ted describes the accident in devastating detail later. The grief affects Ted and Marion in different ways, and while he goes on with his life and continues writing children's horror stories, Marion simply cannot handle life in the house she shared with her boys. Some of the most effective passages in the novel concern the multitude of framed photographs taken of the late Cole boys scattered on the walls of their house in the Hamptons, and the efforts of sister little Ruth, (who was born after her brothers' death), to reimagine the shots after they are removed by her mom. Marion ultimately becomes a strangely unsympathetic character, and her forced reappearance toward the end of the novel seems forced and contrived. Like another reviewer mentioned, Irivng, for some odd reason, often times paints a very limited picture of some characters and places but never misses an opportunity to remind us of the size of Ruth's breasts. Nevertheless, the novel is entertaining, and since nearly every character in the story is a writer, Iriving gets to have some fun providing exerpts of each character's work. If you are an Irving fan, you will enjoy this book and get wrapped up in the story. However it is no Owen Meany.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: John Irving is one of my favorite authors. It is impossible to read one of his newer novels without comparing it with his other works. Unfortunately, Widow For A Year falls short of his usual high mark. Typically, one can become utterly engrossed in Irving's characters. This is not the case in Widow. All the characters lack that certain something that make them real. I felt completely ambivalent towards them all. They had little or no dimension to them. Usually with Irving, one finds it hard to leave the characters behind when finishing the book. In Widow, although I liked the ending, I had no sense of "missing" them when the story was over. Over all, it is not a terrible book. But to compare it to Owen Meany, Garp or CiderHouse will only leave you disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a book without heart
Review: If you're looking for an engaging book and you've heard John Irving is fabulous, skip this novel. You'll be disappointed. Try A Prayer for Owen Meany instead. Irving tells his story from such a great distance that none of his characters are people you can care at all about. The language is crude and the plot relies so heavily on absurd coincidences, that as I turned the pages, I became more and more frustrated. It is possible to create a fantastic ending or story arc if a writer has the right touch with humor and surprise, but in this work, Irving seems like he's "phoning it in." He touches on important issues and there are touching moments. Some of his narrative devices are effective and compelling, but overall the book lacks a soul. Skip this and look for John Irving elsewhere. You won't find him here.
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Summary: Character development was lacking sorely!
Review: I have been an Irving reader for more years than I care to remember, starting with the Hotel New Hampshire and Garp. This book left me hungry for more, although not in a good way. The characters were so shallow and underveloped that one didn't care if they lived or died or who ended up with whom. Eddie was unbelievable as the teenage paramour to marion and became less believable as the story drug on. Ruth was uninspired and Ted...oh what he could have done with that man. The outer circle of friends and mates left one feeling like you had imagined they even existed. The one character that elicited some sympathy and interest from me was the prostitute. And she was quickly killed off when her light began to outshine Ruth's in the story. I did finish this book hoping for some magnificent twist of fate that would make me care about these people, but none came. It was steady reading but the hope of greatness never materialized. The ending was as uninspired as any I have ever seen. It was obvious that this is how it would end and left an empty feeling when it was seemingly thrown into it to wrap it all up in a nice package.
Rating:
Summary: Another great Irving
Review: Once again, he has written a page turner that made me sad to put down when I was done. Irving creates Ruth as a great portrait of a strong woman, determined to live life on her own terms despite a tortured childhood and persistent, haunting memories. I love the way Irving slowly releases information througout the course of his stories that gradually contribute towards an understanding of the characters' behavior - how Ruth's childhood shaped her later in life, how Eddie's love for Ruth's mom so overwhelmed him throughout his life. If you like Irving, this is one you shouldn't miss.
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