Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre Wolfe
Review: Some of the professional reviews I read compared AMIF with Dickens or proclaimed "an impossibly smart" book. It is neither, unless you want Dickens for the T.V. generation. The book requires persistence until about page 440, then it gains momentum, making you hang on for the ultimately disappointing finish. Wolfe did some good local research, but his attempt to re-create south Georgia dialect is clumsy, and his characters are on the whole not believable or very interesting. The end panders to our desire for a happy ending, but comes off as totally unjust and unrealistic.
Rating: 
Summary: Trash
Review: If you're looking for a massive, trashy novel...this is the one! If, on the other hand, you're looking for something of substance...don't bother. The highlight (for me) centered on the stoic, Epictetus. The rest is just so much dirty froth.
Rating: 
Summary: This one was half full
Review: Maybe I missed the genius here, but this book kept going and going and nothing seemed to be happening. The ending was very unsatisfying. You don't even like any of the characters. Should have called it quits after a few chapters. Having never read any Tom Wolfe novels before, this is likely my one and only Wolf read. Nuf sed.
Rating:
Summary: not too mesmerising
Review: I'm glad I plodded through this. I like the way the characters all come together in the end. There appears to be too much description that goes nowhere for my taste.
Rating:
Summary: Nice work...a little drawn out.
Review: Although the characters were defintaly developed the only one i found interesting had very little to do with the actual plot.
Rating:
Summary: Excruciating
Review: I must be missing something. I found this book excruciating to get through. Seems it was about 400 pages too long.
Rating: 
Summary: Spins A Great Yarn!
Review: I thought Wolfe depicted the qualities of an "old southern gentleman" right on the money. Charlie Crocker and company wove an intersting tale of greed, egotism, male chauvinism, ambition, pride, courage, betryal, and loss. I enjoyed the characters and the subtle humor (Wringer, Fleasom and Tick is a pretty humorous name for a law firm) and thought Wolfe did a good job of not being afraid to write how things "really" are in the OLD south, especially where there is race, money and power operating. Like many others, I was rather disappointed in the ending.....I would have like to have known more about how Charlie's life progressed and could not imagine him being an evangelist of all things! All in all, a great story, although I must agree with one of the other reviewers....the book is defintely not a postcard showcasing life in Atlanta.
Rating:
Summary: (read on ...)
Review: A man in full? The only reference to the title in all 787 pages of Mr. Tom Wolfe's decade-awaited novel is a little ditty sung by admirers of one of the book's main characters, one Charlie Croker. Mr Croker is a real-estate developer in present-day Atlanta, and--this isn't spilling any beans, trust me--doesn't earn this description, at least initially. Who *does* deserve to be a Man In Full, when the trappings of this witty, ironic tome are finally played out? Probably the person you least suspect. The way we find out is heavy-handed, but at least it's a fun ride. Mr. Wolfe has made a fine living writing pseudo-fiction (I'm sure professional reviewers have prettier words): dropping characters into present-day, very recognizable locales and moving them about like so many chess pieces. His somewhat dated 'Bonfire of the Vanities' skewered 1980's New York society (and spawned probably the worst film of the past 20-odd years) like no one else could, but ultimately did it matter? If he aspires to be more than the Thackery of his day, the author had better do better. He reaches far with this book. And almost succeeds. Clearly, he's after very high ground, and the characters set to do battle are riotous: the aforementioned Croker, a megalomaniac developer from southern 'Jo-jah' desperately clinging to his fortune; Conrad Hensley, a peon working for part of Croker's empire, who's life will soon showcase Wolfe's view of the service economy, our lust for jailing petty perpetrators, the assimilation of new Asian immigrants, and even a stop at philosophical redemption; the mayor and a prominent lawyer--both black--who must find a way to defend a black star athlete from Georgia Tech accused of raping a prominent white citizen's daughter. Add to all those a delicious assortment of lesser characters, all outfitted with Wolfe's over-the-top naming conventions (a banker named--I'm not making this up--Raymond Peepgass, a Hungarian fitness instructor named Mustafa Gunt) and his standard exclamations points! You have an excellent cast, and the game is set. It's a circus, but Wolfe commands them well. The characters' lives intertwine in ways we could probably predict once we know the staging--but we're left with one wildcard and we're made to wait for it. The book's second half almost predictably drags with all the characters save one, who may provide both deliverance and substance worthy of the book's title. Take all this in, and see if you agree.
Rating: 
Summary: Unsatisfying Last Minute epiphanies
Review: Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, scene by scene, chapter by Chapter I savored Wolf's novel A Man In Full. Then I reached the climax with its absurd, paradoxical epiphanies and subsequent celebration of cynicism triumphant in Wes Jordan's office. Other, more satisfying choices were available for Charlie . He didn't have to be caught up in the despair driven epiphany of Conrad the big handed Stoic particularly at a moment when Cap'm Charlie's trophy wife Serena was beginning to show a spark of character, affection, intelligence and authentic support for the Sixty Minute Man. Tom Wolf is one of my favorite authors and aside from the ending I enjoyed every second of his narration. I found the "saddlebags" scene particularly vivid, hilarious and frightening. Wait a minute...the MANAGER JUST TOLD ME THAT I LIKE THE ENDING so as far as recommending this book well you do what you want and I'll do what I want.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Tom Wolfe
Review: TW tries to shoulder the mantle of Charles Dickens, and succeeds fairly well. Like the moralistic, melodramatic sweep of Dickens' best, A Man in Full sprawls over the full expanse of the human swamp, incorporating characters from all social niches and swirling them into a maelstrom of a plot. I thought it worked better in Bonfires of the Vanities, but that's a quibble. All in all, much better than what usually passes for fiction out there. If you want something in a similar aren't-we-humans-rediculous vein, but not overwritten, try Little Green Men by Christopher Buckley.
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