Rating: 
Summary: Bland and Uninspiring
Review: To read this book the mightiest feat the missionaries accomplished was traversing the geography. I was left with a feeling of "So what?" after finishing this book. Not unlike eating a bag of Doritos for dinner. To read a very very good book on very similar lines, check out "Black Robe" by Brian Moore. Others are "No Other Life" by the same author, "The Power and the Glory" bu Graham Greene; even "Monsignor Quixote" by Graham Greene exhibits more emotion than this flat tale.Perhaps, if you're not Catholic, want an overly scrubbed version of life on the frontier, and don't care about passion in the books you read; this'll do the trick. Willa Cather is a superios sytlist, however. Read the book for how she says something, and not what it is she is saying.
Rating: 
Summary: my favorite book ever
Review: As an English major in college and an all-around lover of literature, I have had the joy of reading some wonderful books by the world's best authors. This book is my favorite. It was the first book I had read by Willa Cather, and what struck me most about it was her style. I remember thinking how clever and profound of her to describe in a passage not the landscape of New Mexico, but "the sky, the sky!" Everything about about this book is beautiful.
Rating: 
Summary: In the end, it's a winner
Review: If one can survive the first 50 pages of this novel, it will pay nice dividends. I was about to put this book into my "Read this book when you're 80 years old" collection, until the section picked up the pace where Lavore began to show EMOTIONS. I'm estimating it was around the middle of Book Two. As soon as I began to sense the archbishop's feelings, the entire novel came to life. I could picture Cather's vivid details, and more importantly, I saw the masterpiece the archbishop was desperately trying to create. At the conclusion, I actually felt sad. I'd also like to comment on the fact that readers objected to whether or not the events in the book were facts or not. Why is this important? Cather never asserted they were true - it's NOT nonfiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Page turner
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Cather's descriptions are vivid and extensive, but to my taste not boring. I also liked the "freeze frame" style, because (this may be shallow) I have a 6 month old baby and that limits my time and attention span these days. I resisted this book at first, but got caught up in it pretty quickly. I did wish there was a chapter that fleshed out the Pike's Peak story.
Rating:
Summary: A great American classic
Review: I have to admit that I enjoy the novels of Willa Cather more than those of many of her American contemporaries, like Heminingway and Fitzgerald. Perhaps because she primarily wrote books that were somewhat historical in nature she isn't perceived as relevant as them. For whatever reason, I find her to be a marvelous writer, and although I have read almost a dozen of her books, I haven't found anything that wasn't completely enchanting. If you like this one, follow it up with the almost equally marvelous SHADOWS ON THE ROCK.
Rating:
Summary: I laughed, I cried, I felt every emotion at once
Review: Of the many books I have read since beginning my prison sentence here in Danbury, Willa Cather's _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ has proven to be the most compelling. Cather's ability to interweave speculations about European art and culture, while painting with equal beauty the cerulean skies of Northern New Mexico provide me with great comfort, since my only view here in Danbury is that of my cell-mate's mattress-bottom. Once I get finished with my eight to ten, and if I can stay straight after parole, I hope to make it to Santa Fe someday so I can see these skies for myself.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening!
Review: This is a wonderful book detailing life in the Southwest around the time America acquired the land. Cather has a nice writing style that keeps you interested throughout the life of the main character. Expect to fly through this book.
Rating:
Summary: Cather makes my knees weak
Review: It has been a long time since I read a Willa Cather novel. I had forgotten how lively and spiritual she is. When I was a student at Vassar a number of years ago, I read "My Antonia" and "A Lost Lady". At the time, I was going through a horrible breakup with my boyfriend and I remembered how uplifting these novels were. I sat in my room for weeks just reading and feeling a since of kinship with Antonia's troubled life and the Lost Lady's claustrophobic one. Recently, I was going through a troubled time in my life (my life-partner and I separated) and I decided to turn to Willa Cather again. I picked up "Death Comes ... " in a bookstore and knew it was the pick-me-up I needed. It turned out to be much more spiritual than the other two, but the complexity of the human dilemma was fully enlightening. I recommend this book to anyone having trouble in their personal life who needs to think bigger thoughts and move outside of themselve to find some answers.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: Willa Cather sacreligiously portrays the father as some sort of hero because he is baptising and converting all the mexicans. Personally, i think this is disrespectful of all people's beliefs besides Christians. The descriptions are so boring and meandering, it is difficult to follow the paths of the characters. This book would have been better had it been reduced to about 30 pages, and written without these descriptions. I will never read this kind of drivel again.
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: Look, there's nothing wrong with descriptive prose to create a sense of place and time but GIVE ME A BREAK! Page after page consisting of detailed descriptions of the native foliage had me bored out of my mind. Save this one for bedtime.
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