Rating: 
Summary: Great!
Review: To find all of the Tales of the City books inside two large volumes is a true treasure trove! I can't tell you how many days I appeared in my office with dark circles under my eyes from too many nights up late trying to escape the hypnotic spell of these wonderful stories.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop at "Further Tales of the City."
Review: What Armistead Maupin spent three books building up, he spends three books knocking down. I was made to care so much for these characters that reading the final three books in the series is like listening to someone bad mouth your family. Everything that I loved about the first three books (the absurdity, the strange innocence, the surrogate family the characters have created for themselves) is gone. In all honesty, my main problem is that the story and the characters simply don't do what I want them to do. The characters simply don't seem to like each other anymore. I realize Maupin was in a very different place in his life when he wrote the final books, but I just didn't enjoy reading them. It's remarkably childish, but in my mind the series ends with book three.The first three novels get five stars from me, straight across the board. The final three novels with this collection, get about a three. "Babycakes" is pretty good, "Significant Others" is just okay, "Sure of You" is quite bad.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect ending...
Review: When I moved to NYC and was, for the most part, broke, I would spend hours in Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble reading books to pass my time. I spent one glorious weekend with my new friends at Barbary Lane relishing in their adventures and crying at their personal pain and anguish. When I was a bit richer, I scraped together what money I could and bought the full anthology. These are true rich characters that you find yourself revisiting at least once a year at their wonderful home with perhaps the most divine landlady in existence. Even now on my umpteenth reread, I still find myself crying at the start of the fourth book (and trust me you will too) and hating Mary Ann by the end of the sixth book (hard to believe but she is one vicious woman). Even after finishing the sixth book, I do wonder about the live of my favorite Russian Hill residents and what they're up to....and I'm sure you will as well.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect ending...
Review: When I moved to NYC and was, for the most part, broke, I would spend hours in Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble reading books to pass my time. I spent one glorious weekend with my new friends at Barbary Lane relishing in their adventures and crying at their personal pain and anguish. When I was a bit richer, I scraped together what money I could and bought the full anthology. These are true rich characters that you find yourself revisiting at least once a year at their wonderful home with perhaps the most divine landlady in existence. Even now on my umpteenth reread, I still find myself crying at the start of the fourth book (and trust me you will too) and hating Mary Ann by the end of the sixth book (hard to believe but she is one vicious woman). Even after finishing the sixth book, I do wonder about the live of my favorite Russian Hill residents and what they're up to....and I'm sure you will as well.
Rating:
Summary: some enchanted reading
Review: You cannot go wrong with this collection of stories. As some reviewers have noted, this collection contains more heartbreak and distress than the first three books, but in some ways that makes these three novels all the more moving. The carefree highjinx that the characters enjoyed in their youth have given way to the responsibilities, choices, and losses of adulthood. You will be moved by the ways Maupin has his characters navigate this difficult terrain, and as with the first three books you will laugh when the characters laugh and cry when they cry, and wish that there were six more books in this purely enchanting series.
Rating:
Summary: some enchanted reading
Review: You cannot go wrong with this collection of stories. As some reviewers have noted, this collection contains more heartbreak and distress than the first three books, but in some ways that makes these three novels all the more moving. The carefree highjinx that the characters enjoyed in their youth have given way to the responsibilities, choices, and losses of adulthood. You will be moved by the ways Maupin has his characters navigate this difficult terrain, and as with the first three books you will laugh when the characters laugh and cry when they cry, and wish that there were six more books in this purely enchanting series.
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