Rating: 
Summary: Informative and Interesting
Review: I don't understand the poor reviews of this incredible and vital novel. The characters were very compelling, their stories poignant, but even more the history, the scientific research, the mystery of Easter Island itself would have been enough to hold my attention. But then I am not put off by the science, and instead relish it. I wish more books of fiction were this well thought out and included this much science. After reading WOMEN IN THE FIELD there's a whole goldmine of future novels like this one. The way the two stories finally mesh was a sad but satisfying ending. Wonderful, I look forward to more.
Rating:
Summary: A good story, well told.
Review: I flag examples of writing I admire and can learn from. My copy of this book is full of flags. The author does a wonderful job of weaving two stories and kept me absorbed from start to finish.
Rating: 
Summary: The history more interesting than the human interest
Review: I found the excellently-researched background of Easter Island and its mysterious statues more interesting than the human element in this story. Like another reader stated, it left me wanting to know more.
Of the two female protagonists, I felt the most for Elsa, who loved a man she couldn't have while married to a man she didn't love in order to secure a stable home for her autistic sister, though I found Greer more likeable and engaging.
I'm afraid for the most part the book was over my head, as it got a little too heavyhanded with detail, and I wish the author had given more time to the unfortunate German captain and his crew that figure in the story as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely good novel, and great for a 1st effort
Review: I found this novel to be extremely well-written and engaging. The story unfolds at the perfect pace, and you find yourself caring more and more about the two main characters, Elsa and Greer, as the book progresses. Overall, I think this is a 4-star novel, but a 5-star 1st effort. Vanderbes is a young writer to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully enchanting!
Review: I loved this book! It is thoughtful and intelligent, yet totally captivating. Beautifully written, it skillfully blends the perfect balance of history and science with intriguing stories of the two heroines. On finishing the book, I was driven to read more about Easter Island, the moai, rongorongo, Katherine Routledge and Vice Admiral Graf von Spee. I hope the author is planning to write a second novel -- I shall look forward to it.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful outstanding read!
Review: I loved this book. It was beautifully written. I recommended my book club to read this month. We meet on June 20th and it will be interesting what everyone thinks. The writing style reminded me of Memoirs of a Geisha...so much feeling was divulged on one page that many authors would spend hundreds of pages writing.This book is a great read!
Rating:
Summary: I loved it!
Review: I thought this book was excellent! I would definitely recommend it... I couldn't wait to see what happened but didn't want it to end either! The "technical" information is a bit much at times but really not that bad at all, I enjoyed learning about the scientific aspects of Greer and Elsa's adventures. Definitely a different kind of novel, not your typical stuff!
Rating:
Summary: Loved it from start to finish
Review: I've read many well reviewed books of late, but few have been as riveting as this one. Remarkably well crafted, it should appeal to the scholar, romantic, scientist, historian...I just enjoyed it immensely. I do suspect that it will appeal more to the female reader than the male, but I found it thoroughly enjoyable. I have seen some critics find its ending more than an acceptable leap...I found, instead, that its ending was earned - and delightful. A lovely read - I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Interesting historical fiction with scientific/geographic extras makes this book unique. It is not a romance, but a book that does deal with male/female relationships and how 2 women struggled to achieve a place in science and a life for themselves. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Always Complex But Sometimes Dissatisfying
Review: Many reviewers and readers have commented on Jennifer Vanderbes's use of remote Easter Island and its geography in her debut novel, yet few have remarked on her use of the island's name for her title. A thorough read of this always complex and sometimes dissatisfying book reveals that Vanderbes chose that title carefully.Easter Island, an isosceles triangle of volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean, is two thousand miles from both Tahiti and Chile and one of the most isolated places on earth. Known today as "Rapa Nui," or "Great Rapa" (to distinguish it from "Little Rapa," or "Rapa Iti"), the island's earliest native settlers called it "Te Piti O Te Henua," or "the navel of the world." In 1722, Admiral Roggeveen stumbled across the island on Easter Sunday, and bestowed its most familiar moniker upon it. The contrast of great to small, the symbolism of the navel, and the connotations of the Christian Easter --- none of this is lost on Vanderbes, who has crafted a story involving sibling and spousal rivalry, connectedness and separation, frustration and hope. The two women involved are the English Elsa Pendleton who, in 1912, makes a marriage of convenience to anthropologist Edward Beazley, and Greer Sandor who, in the 1960s, makes a marriage of inconvenience to her botany professor, Thomas Farraday. We encounter Elsa as she, her mentally challenged younger sister Alice, and Edward undertake the physically arduous journey from London via Boston to Easter Island; we meet Greer as she leaves Boston for Easter Island in 1973, after the deaths of both her marriage and Thomas. The parallels between these women's lives --- particularly the stunning and painful betrayals both suffer --- would be rich enough material for nearly any novelist. What makes EASTER ISLAND remarkable are the other universal mysteries Vanderbes stitches in: the putative answer to why the island's enormous stone statues (the moai) exist, the reason for WWI German Admiral von Spee's disastrous Falklands encounter with the British, and the answer to the riddle of the world's oldest angiosperm, or flower. These mysteries, the novel's great strength, are also part of its weakness: the link between von Spee and Elsa does not ring true, and it is in these sections where Vanderbes's voice falters the most. Yet the alternating layers of narrative do offer well-paced suspense. Surprisingly, the suspense is greater in the sections on Greer Farraday's doctoral struggles, and her '70s feminist dilemma sheds light on Elsa's pre-feminist lot. The fact that Vanderbes can convincingly portray a young Edwardian governess, a thirty-something modern palynologist, and still offer a realistic and sympathetic devout middle-aged Polynesian woman (proprietor of Greer's Easter Island residencial), bodes well for her future work. While Greer labors over her core samples, searching for pollen clues, we learn about Elsa's discovery of her talent for anthropology and linguistics as she deciphers the rongorongo hieroglyphics found on the island. Both women ride waves of loss and loneliness tempered by unusual companions: for Elsa, young islander "Biscuit Tin," and for Greer, fellow scientist Vicente Portales. Vanderbes resists the temptation to make the women's lives identical; the lines she draws between them are more subtle and perhaps, as she suggests, more beautiful in their asymmetry. --- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick
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