Rating: 
Summary: Tedious
Review: What long-winded nonsense. The Triumph and the Glory gave me everything Tom Wolfe tries to do in a foot thick book, did it in half the time, with twice the style, three times the enjoyment, and for a third of the price. Give me a good historical fiction novel like The Triumph and the Glory, The Hundred Days, or Cold Mountain over inflated, hollow, self-indulgent books like A Man in Full anyday. Tom Wolfe hasn't written anything good since The Right Stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: MAN IN FULL is a tiresome cliche with unlikeable characters
Review: I was fully prepared to be enraptured with MAN IN FULL as many of us were with BONFIRES. However, this book is tiresome, not pleasurable, and simplistic in its character portrayals. The characters are such unpleasant people; not one of them demands the reader's sympathy, and some are pretty pathetic I'm convinced it would not have been considered for publishing were the author not Tom Wolfe. To think that I'm the one responsible for my book club's choice of book this month! UGH!!
Rating: 
Summary: You don't shoot Quail with Buckshot
Review: You don't shoot quail with buckshot, you shoot deer with buckshot and quail with birdshot. Ask the folks down in Albany, GA. A great book. Mr. Wolfe must be the most observant person ever! Sometimes I got too much detail and often that detail was repeated later. I did not care for the ending. I feel like I know what made Charlie tick and don't think he would have bowed out like he did. Ending wasn't believable. All that said, I am going to read another of Tom Wolfe's books. What a talent.
Rating: 
Summary: What ever happened to plausible endings?
Review: I liked this book. The characters were interesting and highly developed, always a plus; and it was fast paced for a big book, meaning I didn't go into automatic skim mode often; and I liked the several subplots that wound together nicely. But the ending!! Oh, the ending!! Rather the last page read "To Be Continued" then the hapless epilogue. This was, to stay polite, a very weak conclusion to an otherwise absorbing book. The Lord of the rings left me with somewhat the same feeling on the first reading, but I've reread it twice since then. I don't believe I'll read this one again.
Rating:
Summary: Hyperbolic portrayal of the South
Review: I looked forward to this book and am finding it to be a disappointment. Wolfe's incredible exaggerations of life in Atlanta and the South are absurd. I find myself reading the first sentence in each paragraph and skimming most of the rest. Perhap a good beach read, but no substance.
Rating:
Summary: A Man in Full was written by A Man Full of Hot Air...
Review: Tom Wolfe is generally a good writer, but this book was one of the most ponderous and uninteresting novels I have ever bored myself with. It is too long to sustain drama, there are too many characters to keep track of, and the main characters are all so self-serving they are difficult to care about. The only parts of the book I really liked were the sections about Conrad; but after the earthquake and jailbreak--which were so contrived as to be ridiculous--even that great little subplot broke down. The language in A Man in Full is horrible too: Repetitious phrasing, overuse of certain words that were clever the first time, and long, dull paragraphs describing uninteresting details to distraction. Also, Wolfe has resorted to stereotyping his characters: Rich people are bad and corrupt; poor people are good; minorities are either slick or gang members; women are only worried about their bodies and only think of how they can manipulate men; the men only think of making money and getting laid (except for Conrad, who was cool until he started worshiping Zeus). If this book was supposed to be a great symbol of American Life at the end of the 20th Century, it failed miserably and took way too long to upend in my "books to trade in at the used bookstore" pile. There are corrupt and bizarre people in this country, certainly, but humanity has more depth than Wolfe allows for in his monstrous novel; this novel was depressing and sarcastic without ever being funny. Big mistake. There were lots of opportunites for some real humor. I wish I could get the $30.00 bucks I spent on A Man in Full back.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the top ten novels of the 20th Century
Review: Tom Wolfe has everything it takes to be a top writer: He has a great education, experience and skills in investigative journalism (which shows in the finely drawn descriptions of his characters), a fine sense of place, and he is a southerner. Everything he has written has been exceptional. I think his "Bonfire of the Vanities" is, perhaps, THE "Great American Novel." Although "A Man in Full" is a truly fine book, cutting out about 100 pages would have tightened it up and made it much better. I did not think it measured up to Bonfire. I felt that Conrad's discovery and embrace of Stoic philosophy really did not ring true, but if Wolfe felt it was necessary, why didn't he have Conrad reading Marcus Aurelius? The ending was rather abrupt, too, and somewhat weak, but having said that, it's head and shoulders above most novels. Along with Bonfire it truly rates as literature. I will reread it in a couple of years when I can be more objective.
Rating:
Summary: If you must -- wait for the paperback
Review: I settled down for a good read. Wolfe rambled around and took me on a herky-jerky ride through interesting sub-plots that ended nowhere. He could have told the story in 360 pages and left out the 300 pages of repetitive character descriptions.I loved his earlier work. This one I could have left off my summer list. The ending stunk! I put the book down and said is this it? This author wasted my time.
Rating:
Summary: Man in Full; Book in Three-Quarters
Review: This is a book about honor and redemption. It explores the implications of selling out by delving into the lives of people who have done just that. Some of the characters wrestle with their inauthenticity, most are clueless about it, and others celebrate it. Unfortunately, by the end we have no idea what to make of it all because, as many have noted here, Wolfe fails to deliver an ending that is satisfying. Nonetheless, the book is entertaining. It lacks the social bite and relevance of BONFIRE and RIGHT STUFF, but when it comes to Wolfe our expectations may be unreasonably high.
Rating:
Summary: A mix of delight and disappointment!
Review: Well, well, well. I certainly had great hopes for this book, having read and loved The Bonfire of the Vanities and heard all the rave reviews of this one. They said A Man in Full was deeper than Bonfire, and if that means more boring, they were right. A Man in Full was terribly uneven- flashes, more than just flashes, of brilliance, tempered by uninteresting subplots and a stagey storyline. The main problem, however, is with the man in question, Charlie Croker. I couldn't care less about him. I wanted to see him bite the dust-the book became one long, drawn-out bloodletting of this "great" man. The climax just wasn't. If the book had a stronger ending, I probably would have forgiven its weaknesses, forgotten them even. Unfortunately I was let down. The character I most cared about, hapless Conrad, became a footnote, and worse, a contrived plot point. The whole thing with Epictetus and the Stoics became nearly ridiculous. I shouldn't be so critical- there were parts of the book that were engrossing, most of which involved Conrad before his appearance as Charlie's savior. If the book had been Conrad's story- and Charlie the subplot- everyone would have benefitted. I do not regret reading this book, because it had more than its share of great moments and fantastic social satire. It just needed some judicial editing and a more swift ending.
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