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Summary: Life and Death on the Internet
Review: Oprah has focused on family issues we are all interested in. I look forward to this compelling book. I also heard that 'Life and Death on the Internet' by Keith A Schroeder is due to be Oprah's next book selection. I've read this book and it is famtastic! It would be great to getmore insight.
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Summary: I really loved this book
Review: I could not put this book down. It was captured in the charectors and the plot. I laughed, cried, and carried it with me every where until I finished it.
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Summary: Great Reviews for Chris Bohjalian's MIDWIVES
Review: "Superbly crafted and astonishingly powerful....It will thrill readers who cherish their worn copies of *To Kill a Mockingbird*." --PEOPLE"Astonishing...will keep readers up late at night until the last page is turned." --WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD "The courtroom settings provide...ample suspense, but Bohjalian is equally adept at rendering...quieter, individual drama....A writer of unusual heart." --BOSTON GLOBE
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Summary: Edge-of-your seat MUST-read book!!! I loved MIDWIVES!
Review: I am so happy that Oprah chose this amazing novel for her book club! It's perfect for discussion. At heart, I suppose you could say this book is about a Vermont midwife on trial for manslaughter. Even though I loved that part of the story (and the way the author keeps you guessing until the very last page), it was really the way he drew his characters that made me love this novel. The midwife in question, Sybil Danforth, is beautifully drawn. Through her journals you come to know a skillful, passionate midwife, a loving mother and wife, and a supremely creative and curious woman. The story is narrated by Sybil's fourteen year old daughter, Connie, another marvel of a person! Connie is smart, keenly observant, and protective. Chris Bohjalian makes you feel like she is your own daughter. I could go on and on about the book, but I'll stop here and say get it for yourself right away and start reading!!
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Summary: To real to be fiction.
Review: Reading the commentaries on the book let me know that this novel could be a real winner, when one reviewer likened it to "To Kill a Mockingbird". It to is told through the eyes of a child now grown needing to free herself of the secret she holds of the past. I found Connie to be very "Scout" like. Sybil like most of us, cannot/willnot except in the most private of places admit to failure of such a magnitude it threatens one's sanity. The assistant midwife betrays Sybil not because she is trying to right a wrong, but because she seeks to strip Sybil of her gift. Her soul is angry and bitter about her failure to be a Sybil. She like other small people try to destoy what they cannot have. I loved Sybils word for her part in the birthing rite. I wish I could have had a Sybil while I tried to push "a pickle through a straw."
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Summary: Interesting medical-legal thriller
Review: The story was well-told and gripping with several minor flaws. The characters handled the stress they were under with superhuman nobility. By foreshadowing, the author prepared us for one verdict and then gave us the other. Telling the tale from mother's and daughter's viewpoints was an effective device. The issue was compelling.
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Summary: Compelling, but not great
Review: I did enjoy this book, and would call it a "good read". But I think the reviewer who first compared it to To Kill a Mockingbird (thereby ensuring him/herself a blurb on the paperback cover) has some explaining to do. Aside from the fact that it is, yes, about a trial, and told in retrospect by a girl, there are few similarities. To Kill a Mockingbird is all-around a much richer and more complicated book, whereas Midwives is an engrossing novel about, well, midwives. The ending did give me the chills, and I thought it was well-plotted (the back-and-forth chronology didn't bother me as much as it did some readers), but I didn't leave this book with any deep thoughts or insights about motherhood, birth, or even the cultural conflicts between The Establishment and the nutty-crunchy-granola counter-culture.
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Summary: The biggest disappointment on my summer reading list
Review: I was led to believe this book was the next TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Sure, it is a story narrated by an observant female character and it has a court scene, but hereafter all comparisons to Harper Lee's magnificent novel are pale. With the exception of the very gripping birth scene, wherein the tragedy occurs, this novel was completely banal and predictable. Mr. Bohjalain's prose is simplistic and, at its most complicated, journalistic (which makes sense considering his work as a "newspaper-man"). He does not express a fascination with language, but instead treats it with a conventional style. But what most disappointed me was the sheer shallowness of this novel. Great (even good) novels communicate on a variety of layers; they compile an assortment of stories that seem disperate until the end when they become united under a dominant theme. But MIDWIVES is a story with a single thread to it. It's depiction of court-room drama was written on an introductory level. I would suggest anyone who likes this novel to read Russell Banks's THE SWEET HEREAFTER to garner a better read on a similar theme.
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Summary: a good read; impressed with portrayal of female perspective
Review: I very much enjoyed this book. I was impressed with the male author's ability to very convincingly present a female perspective, and of a 14-year-old female to boot. And I have to admit being somewhat amazed that a man would care enough about midwifery and childbirth to carry out the significant amount of research (never mind writing time) that went into this book. I also liked the pace of the book--I was thoroughly drawn in, but unlike pulp detective stories et al., the writing was sophisticated enough that I *could* put it down when I needed to get on with the rest of life.
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Summary: compelling, but not enjoyable
Review: Many times I wanted to stop reading this book and pick up something new, however I couldn't. A need to see this through to the end compelled me to finish "Midwives", but I never did enjoy the tale being told. The characters could be richer and the courtroom finale does not nearly match the drama of the cesarean section that we read in the first 100 pages. It isn't a bad novel, but nor would I recommend to any of my friends to add it to their reading lists.
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