Rating: 
Summary: Magician's Assistant
Review: This book is beautiful. It shows that true love can exist in any form. The characters are wonderful and rememberable. It is a love story that anyone can enjoy. It is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment compared to Bel Canto
Review: I loved, loved Bel Canto and so was expecting great things from Ann's prior book. However, I was disappointed. The plot was a little too contrived and unbelieveable, and I didn't find it inspirational at all, like Bel Canto could be. Just depressing.
Rating:
Summary: Read something else
Review: I am amazed at the 'average 4-star rating' listed for this book. It is flat out the best book of loss ever. I send this book to anyone who has lost a loved one. It is on my Desert Island book list, for sure; and I am a two-book-a-week fiction junkie. Bittersweet, haunting, hopeful, uplifting, funny.....the full package.
Rating: 
Summary: It could have been so much more...
Review: I LOVED "Bel Canto" and had high hopes for this book. As I began, I thought the characters were lovingly drawn and that the only reason the book felt a little flat was because we're seeing everything through Sabine's numb and grief stricken eyes.Yet as the book continues, that flat, superficial feeling never really goes away. We learn that the love of Sabine's life, Parsifal, could do no wrong even though he lied to Sabine about his past and did other horrible, though understandable things. We learn that Nebraska and snow are the definition of hell on earth and that Los Angeles and those who live there are perfect - their only flaws being insignificant ones. We learn that Sabine is one of the most clueless people on Earth, even after having travelled the world, having met hundreds of people, and after having lived 44 years in an international city like LA. I so started to doubt what I was experiencing through her that when she has her big emotional "breakthrough" - I didn't believe it. The ending is another of those "I guess I've written enough pages so I'll stop here" endings. Sigh. Patchett's writing is lyrical and so wonderful to read - I just feel that this book wasn't fleshed out enough. There just wasn't enough of a story or an ending to put it in the same league as "Bel Canto". I guess I'll just wait for her next book.
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