Rating: 
Summary: Perec-lite
Review: A clever and witty novel with some serious subtext that is a pleasure to read. Clearly owing a massive debt to Georges Perec's A Void, Ella Minnow Pea is somewhat more lightweight than its influence but is a far easier text to get through. Ultimately this novel lacks the certain something that makes a book a classic but is highly original and entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: didn't live up to my expectations
Review: As it says in the title this book is a lipogram (and dictionary.com gives us this definition: A writing composed of words not having a certain letter or letters.) It is a very neat idea and the book creates a clever way of making the structure part of the story itself. However, it reminds me of communism in that in theory it sounds incredibly good...but in actuality it is a failure.
Everything about the story from plot to characters is boring and 2 dimensional. There's no development beyond the basic lipogrammatic theme and that gets old after a while. Espeically since after more and more letters go away the book just gets written with alternate spellings using the remaining allowable letters. And even at 200 pages it went on too long. It was too repetitive.
I appreciated the author's love for language, but at times that even got annoying because it felt forced. (although I was happy to find a book with interesting new vocabulary in it!)
In short, I give credit for the idea but I would not really reccomend you read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: CREATIVE, IMAGINATIVE, AND ENTERTAINING
Review: Creative? Imaginative? Entertaining? A tad absurd? You bet to all of the preceding. Playwright Mark Dunn has crafted his first novel, subtitled, "A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable." It is a fable and a fantastic one that takes place today on the fictional island of Nollop, which is a stone's throw from North Carolina. The island is named in honor of the great Nevin Nollop who some 100 years ago penned "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," the revered phrase containing every letter in the alphabet. The more erudite among us know that a verse, phrase or sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet is a "panagram." Nonetheless, the estimable Mr. Nollop is more than erudite to Nollopians; he is a hero and a statue in his honor sits in the town square. But, one day mysterious doings occur - letters of the alphabet begin to fall from the statue's inscription. First to drop is the Z. Then, oops, a Q followed by a J. And so it goes. Respected for their sagacity, the Nollop Town Council immediately rules that the dropped letters are banned in both oral discourse and written communication. Forbidden, mind you, on pain of flogging or expulsion from the island. What to do? It falls to Ella of the Minnow Pea family to discover a panagram using fewer letters in order to return the language they so love to all of Nollop. The story is told in a series of letters, all of which are written adroitly and show just how ingenious one can be when it comes to communicating with fewer letters of the alphabet. Wordsmiths will delight in this highly original tale, and all will smile wondering, "How in the world did Mark Dunn ever think of that?"
- Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: READ THIS BOOK!
Review: Ella Minnow Pea ia a very timely political satire AND an uproariously funny children's story AND a biting social commentary AND a brilliant word game.
Rating:
Summary: Been smiling since I finished...
Review: Ella Minnow Pea is the most unusual page-turner I've ever read in a long time. The story, told entirely through a series of letters, moves at a surprisingly brisk pace. The structure of the story is clever. The reader becomes intrigued with how the inhabitants of a small island off the coast of South Carolina will cope with the loss of each letter of the alphabet. The ending is pleasing and will leave you with a smile on your face. Some might complain that the book is too short, but most folks are going to want to read this again and again, making it a real bargin. Ella Minnow Pea has the potential to become a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for kids, too!
Review: Ella Minnow Pea shares letters with her cousin and other people of the island of Nollop. I enjoyed how interestingly the book was written, especially as the alphabet dwindles! Towards the end, you really have to use your noodle to figure out what the letter groups mean, as letters are replaced by others which sound the same, or sometimes sound only *almost* the same.
I recommend this book to kids and adults who want a funny and interesting read. Now that I have finished the book, I miss Ella and the other inhabitants of Nollop.
Rating:
Summary: A Word and Letter Lovers Delight
Review: Ella Minnow Pea wis written as a series of letters and notes and therefore was a quick, easy read--only took me a day and a half. I highly recommend it to fellow logophiles, as it had interesting, witty and subtly humorous word usage. It's about a small nation that (for reasons better explained by the book) loses the use of certain letters of the alphabet, one at a time. As the letters become unavailable in the story, they disappear in the writing as well. It did get a little tough to read for the last few pages, when the letters were very scarce and the words spelled phonetically, but it was well worth finishing.
Rating:
Summary: Unusual book for a playwright
Review: First, I must agree with the other reviewers in recommending this book. Not only is it interesting to those of us who enjoy books that play with language, it is also a good story. It does get a little difficult towards the end, once several letters of the alphabet are no longer in use, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what's being said. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to talk to someone when you can't use certain letters. It's certainly way beyond those English Composition excercises to write a paper without using the verb, "to be." After I finished the book, I wanted to find out more about the characters. "Wouldn't these characters make a good movie," I thought. Then I realized that this book would just not translate to the screen. I don't think it would even work as an audiobook. The impact of the losing letters of the alphabet can only be appreciated when presented in a text (or Braille) format. Although many other books that use correspondence between characters to tell their stories have been successfully adapted for the stage or screen, "Ella Minnow Pea" is best appreciated in book form. I find it fascinating that the author, Mark Dunn, a playwright, has written a story that could not be presented using his usual form.
Rating:
Summary: don't judge a book by it's cover
Review: For all of you wanna be intellectuals, don't overlook ELLA MINNOW PEA because of it's childish green cover. Ella Minnow Pea offers much clever letter writing between characters, and Dunn illustrates a land where language is the highest form of art and government is ludicrous. I read this book in about a day's time and was very fulfilled when I turned the last page. You'll find yourself having to read aloud do to some quircky writing at the end. It's a fun book that anyone will enjoy. And anyone who doesn't enjoy it...well, go look for books that people will think make you look smart. (Dark covers with the authors name written largely are always a sure bet.)
Rating:
Summary: Get Ella Minnow Pea, ASAP!
Review: How about something refreshingly original, amazingly creative, wholeheartedly unique? Or maybe something containing whimsically plausible characters encasing hearty penchants for the written word and appetites for poetically stimulating language usage? Look no further! Read Ella Minnow Pea for a divine, utterly addictive, and monumentally appealing perusing experience. In the fictional island of Nollop, home to the late, great Nevin Nollop, inventor of the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," a pangram that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet, there's an uprising going on! Seems the monument depicting said sentence (in an effort to memorialize the citizens' esteemed island founder) is falling apart, letter by letter. High Council members determine this as a word from the great beyond, a way of communicating to us Nollop's wishes to eradicate that certain letter from use -- verbally or written. As an island full of people who use letter-writing and communication as an art form, these wishes could only spell 'demise.' If only there was a way to prove the tiles' falling as an act of faulty cement glue.... Ella Minnow Pea is an extraordinary book of letters from one citizen to the next that increase in hilarity and difficulty as each letter of the alphabet is increasingly banned from use. Mark Dunn is an extremely talented writer in my eyes, especially given this amazing task to expand his vocabulary beyond normal conversation. Have your Thesauruses handy -- Ella Minnow Pea will take you on quite an intellectual journey.
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