Rating: 
Summary: A fantastically sensual book
Review: Unlike most of the reviewers, I loved this book. While it was not erotic, as the title would suggest, it was extremely sensual in its descriptions of art and Italy. While the main character was perhaps not one that I could identify with, she was very engaging, as were most of the characters. The descriptions were given both through her eyes and the authors, which while confusing, gave the novel a duality that was intriguing. If anything, read this book for the ending auction scene. My heart was literally racing throughout the scene. I have never had such a physical reaction to a book as I had to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother
Review: Plot? What plot. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen. Even the sex scenes were mundane. Populated by a gaggle of one-dimensional characters & false starts striving to waste the reader's time.
Rating: 
Summary: Jaunty saunter through Italy, but too many ups and downs
Review: Few novels start better. I fell in love with the female protagonist in the first few chapters and fell decidedly out of love with her as the plot unfolded. The novel rambles, unwinding gradually. Too uneven to be really enjoyable right through, somehow parts feel hurried, losing a languid touch so effortlessly achieved at first. Aimless swipes at the Catholic Church just seem clumsy. Still, a remarkable first effort,
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant reading for the most part
Review: My take on the book:The shifts from first person to third person were slightly jarring. Nothing in the book really seemed to ground the story in 1966, especially not the language. The catch phrases Margot used seem very contemporary. I'm not certain that the male author has really captured the female psyche, particularly in the beginning train scenes that seem rather gratuitous in the discription of naked women. Also, I found the following passage to be condescending and thoroughly annoying: "Yolanda bent over to remove her nylons and I inhaled, along with the gentle aroma of expensive perfumes, a powerful damp-dog smell. Someone was having her period." Uhhh..."damp-dog smell"???? Maybe I've missed something in the course of my life, but I've never smelled another woman having her period. All this aside, I did enjoy the convent scenes and the information about book binding. The book touches on a number of themes (the meaning of "home," coming to terms with death, etc.) but never really delves deeply. Thus, I found the book to be mostly pleasant, but hardly life-altering reading.
Rating:
Summary: A Little Treat
Review: The Sixteen Pleasures is the mental equivalent of an "amusee bouche," in France, a little treat served before the serious meal that tickles the palate. Although limited in terms of plot and character development, the book presents a thoroughly enjoyable story of Margot, a young American on a wonderful adventure abroad. The essence of youth, when one is so blissfully (and thankfully) ignorant of the gravity of life to come, and the essential beauty of Florence are captured here superbly. Try this delicious treat!
Rating: 
Summary: not quite a waste of time
Review: Mildly entertaining. Likable character but not fully developed. Many characters are introduced with no "meat"; flat one dimensional. Many areas or themes are touched upon but never explored. The idea of a person trying to find oneself is exciting; however, the author didn't complete the journey. The premise had so much potential. It never bloomed
Rating:
Summary: Strong on information, weak on story
Review: A rambling and disjointed book, this has many fascinating moments but never hangs together. The descriptions of book conservation are well done and interesting. The author has failed, though, to assemble any believable characters. His effort to assume a woman's voice fails miserably and in the midst of the well-researched text, one searches in vain for a plot.
Rating:
Summary: Pedestrian writing
Review: You'll have to pick your pleasures out of the dross of this very uneven novel. An interesting premise in an evocative setting receives a linguistically dull treatment. In language as plain as blank paper, Hellenga disjointedly hops from family memoir to sociological analysis to romantic adventure to professional exegesis with little sense of cohesion. It's as though he strung together vignettes from a first draft. Characters come and go without much discernable relevance to the story and motivations are murky at best. The best sections deal with Margot's mother's death, the obstacles to divorce in Italy, bidding at auction, and of course the effects of the flood on Florence. If you want a vicarious tour of the city, read Mary McCarthy's Stones of Florence instead.
Rating:
Summary: A virtual trip through Florence
Review: Hellenga's first novel, unlike his disappointing and overwritten "The Fall of a Sparrow," is a likeable and sweet look at the late coming of age of Margot Harrington, a book conservator. Packed with fascinating detail about books, art and Florentine culture, the book reads like a love letter to Italy. I had a bit of trouble with the love interest, Sandro. Why would he return to his wife after being separated for 10 years? And the "Sixteen Pleasures," while hinted at broadly, are never explained. This is a cheat, especially since the book gets its title from the provocative erotica. Still, the heroine is a strong and heady presence and her encounters with the nuns of the convent are nothing short of inspirational. Hellenga wraps it all up in a quick-moving mystery of sorts. This is a fine acheivement for a literary novel.
Rating:
Summary: Want to travel to Florence, read this book
Review: I am in 8th grade and I read "Sixteen Pleasures" for an ORA (outside reading assignment.) Though it may be a bit adult it was great. My mom tried to take it away from me and read it but I wouldn't let her. The book's atomsphere put in Florence and I could picture myself in the mud, in the cold, in Margot's place. It was amazing. When I got to school the next day I told about 11 of my friends "I read a really good book, you should all read it..."
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