Rating: 
Summary: deeply moving, beautifully constructed
Review: I am in awe of the power of Patchett's storytelling, pulled off with such delicacy of touch and understanding. Her ability to draw characters, the way these people come to reveal themselves to themselves, the perfection of the questions left unanswered.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent dialogues and descriptions, challenges paradigms
Review: I really enjoyed this book, it took me out of my whitebread existence and placed me into two very different families and their interaction with one another. I found this an extremely well written book and enjoyable to read with each chapter an adventure into these interesting characters.
Rating:
Summary: I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN
Review: What a great novel! Full of surprises, good will, and good writing. A really amazing read. I'm going to order her other two novels immediately! Do read THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT -- the characters will live with you for a long, long time. And their company is good.
Rating: 
Summary: Spellbinding, full of surprises, dreams
Review: Once in a while, I find myself so mesmerized by a book that I buy it in bulk to give to friends. Ann Patchett¹s The Magician¹s Assistant is one such read, an enchanting story that left me spellbound. It is a tale about appearance verses reality, a tale full of surprises crafted by Patchett¹s own sleight of hand. As the story begins, Parsifal the magician is dead. Sabine, his wife of five months, is in shock. She knew he would die but not from the aneurysm which occurred a few hours earlier. Sabine has loved Parsifal for 22 years, from the moment she laid down her waitress¹s tray and volunteered to assist with his magic act. Now, Parsifal¹s life has come to an abrupt halt, and we read and grieve with Sabine over her tremendous loss. Nine days after Parsifal¹s death, Sabine¹s phone rings. It is their lawyer. Parsifal, she is told, has left part of his estate to his mother and two sisters. Mother and two sisters? Parsifal told Sabine that he had no family, that there had been an accident years ago, and all were dead. Sabine, never given any details, had created her own version of the car crash that killed his entire family. ³Sabine made them out of bits of Parsifal¹s personality, characteristics of his face. She made their skin from the pale color of his skin. She put them together in her spare time, and when she had it exactly right, she arranged them in the car and sent them speeding towards their death.² With the lawyer¹s call, Sabine realizes her total belief in Parsifal has been an illusion, like the magic she helped him perform. Mother and sister arrive in California to meet Sabine, their only link to Parsifal¹s past. Shortly after their visit, Sabine sees that she now has ³eighteen untouched years... early, forgotten volumes of her favorite work. A childhood that could be mined month by month. Parsifal would not get older, but what about younger?² Sabine travels from sunny California to Alliance, Nebraska, birthplace of Parsifal born Guy Fetters. Alliance, where Sabine sees flat land and snow and ³streets lined in rows of tiny, identical ranch houses.² It is quite a contrast to Los Angeles with ³the scent of flowers and citrus that as recently as May had settled on her clothes and in her hair like a fine dust,² Sabine wonders as she drives through Alliance if it¹s the snow that makes every house look the same or ³was there something else under that white blanket?² Indeed there is and as the past unfolds, so do the lives of the Fetter family. By the time Sabine returns to California, the healing has begun, a healing that comes from her new founded knowledge of the man she loved, a man she thought she knew. There is another character in the novel by the name of Phan, a Vietnamese refuge who is dead, but plays a critical role in the relationship between Sabine and Parsifal. Sabine has a number of dreams about Phan, and it is through these dreams that she comes to accept death. Phan acts as her spiritual guide and Patchett¹s descriptions of this journey are wonderful. Her writing is so believable that I forgot I was reading about dreams. I wanted Sabine¹s illusions to be real. The Magician¹s Assistant can be read on many levels. Sabine and Parsival, the names themselves suggest a relationship between the ancient myths of the courageous Sabine women who stopped their fathers and husbands from killing each other, and Parsifal, who causes the Holy Grail to assume its consecrational powers. But this is a book review and not a dissertation. I know you¹ll enjoy The Magician¹s Assistant. As the author explains, magic is less about surprise than it is control. ³You lead them in one direction and then come up from behind their backs. They watch you, at every turn they will be suspicious, but you give them decoys. People long to be amazed, even as they fight it. Once you amaze them, you own them.² Patchett¹s performance certainly amazed me. Like I said at the start, I now own a lot of copies of this book
Rating:
Summary: A book by one of our best writers.
Review: This story is a beautiful blance of description, narration, and exposition. Ann is surely one of America's best writers. Her stories stay with the reader long after they're read. Perhaps, it's because of her honesty with the reader: no tricks or phoney baloney, instead life in its fullness of tragedy and comedy flowing page after page. Writers probably cannot change the world very much, but some writers, such as Patchett, make it a considerably better.
Rating:
Summary: This is an extraordinary, remarkable and original book.
Review: This book was recommended to me by my now-worshipped local bookseller. It has been a long time--longer than I care to remember--since I have been so infatuated with a book and with the evident talent of its author. I don't think I've read anything as good as this in over ten years. This lovely, impressive book about the nature of love seems to me utterly unique and of the highest possible standard.Ann Patchett has written a book that is entirely compelling and magical in the spell it casts. Her characters and descriptions are so memorable that nine months after reading it, I can still remember almost everything. A writer who can achieve this kind of magic is a kind of wizard herself, and I have bought her two other books and am starting to read them. If you have been disillusioned with many other highly praised novels, as I have, then try Ann Patchett. I can't imagine she can disappoint. This is a book about love, and the myriad forms love takes; it is a book that radiates love. It is, I think, an irreplaceable, invaluable book. I recommend it for anything that ails you and anything that doesn't. Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Rating: 
Summary: Real people intertwined with unique circumstances
Review: I found this novel to be very readable and enjoyable. I found the characters to be believable and likable ( with a few exceptions, which is where the story unfolds and becomes very interesting and sad). I was a little disappointed with the ending. It was a happy one, but a little too predictable. I would recommend this book because it has an engrossing story-line, likable characters and leaves you with a feeling of optimism and hope.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent read, very well written
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It took a little time for it to grip me, but when it did, it really did. Well crafted prose, great characters, and an interesting plot.
Rating: 
Summary: The Worst Book I Read in '98
Review: Talk about overrated novels. I bought this book in good faith after reading the rave reviews. I can't believe anyone could enjoy this novel. It is extremely boring and meanders all over the place. Someone compared this book to the works of Anne Tyler ... you'd better go back and reread Tyler! There's no comparison.
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing and touching novel
Review: Amazon.com was proud to note that they chose not to feature certain books despite lucrative offers; this was one novel they declined to feature. Why? Hard to know since this was one of the best novels I read in 1998. Anyone who likes Ann Beattie or Ann Tyler would like it. Good characterizations and well-written.
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