Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: I came upon this book quite on accident, yet I'm pleased that I did! Frederick Busch, a prolific writer who has written over a dozen works since the 1970's does a wonderful job of telling the story of Jack, a Vietnam vet, who is struggling with the loss of his daughter, and the gradual loss of his marriage. Jack is a compelling character, with a wonderful narrative voice. There is a mystery of dead/missing girls which Jack gets wrapped up into, and yet, there is so much more here, like the healing process which Jack so needs to experience. If you're looking for a pure thriller/mystery about missing girls, then look elsewhere. If you want a richly layered novel with believable characters, a great plot, and with some unexpected surprises thrown in, READ THIS. I, personally, have just purchased two new Busch novels, and I can't wait to see how they stack up with Girls.
Rating: 
Summary: A Compelling Read
Review: I came upon this book quite on accident, yet I'm pleased that I did! Frederick Busch, a prolific writer who has written over a dozen works since the 1970's does a wonderful job of telling the story of Jack, a Vietnam vet, who is struggling with the loss of his daughter, and the gradual loss of his marriage. Jack is a compelling character, with a wonderful narrative voice. There is a mystery of dead/missing girls which Jack gets wrapped up into, and yet, there is so much more here, like the healing process which Jack so needs to experience. If you're looking for a pure thriller/mystery about missing girls, then look elsewhere. If you want a richly layered novel with believable characters, a great plot, and with some unexpected surprises thrown in, READ THIS. I, personally, have just purchased two new Busch novels, and I can't wait to see how they stack up with Girls.
Rating:
Summary: Life-Less
Review: I found the writing and characters BORING in the extreme. Page 51 was as far as I could stand.
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I found this book extremely boring. Although the book was well written, I found the characters underdeveloped and uninteresting. I quit reading after a painful 130 pages.
Rating:
Summary: Girls is Worth Your Time
Review: I'm not going to overly intellectualize on this. What I've always liked best about Busch is his ability to crystallize the truth of a momentary feeling in domestic human relationships that immediately makes you think it is so obvious you wonder why you never realized it before. And he does it with an unadorned prose that is both sharp and simple.
"Girls" slowly uncovers the pain. desperation, and fear of a few people in the way people themselves (if they're lucky) discover it, after the fact and as if by accident and with some real understanding coming out of it. Many books are (or at least their dust jackets claim them to be) about bleakness leading to hope: this book makes you believe it. Mark Boyer
Rating: 
Summary: Good but took me a while to get through it.
Review: If that makes sense. I thought the first chapter was confusing, until I realized you need to re-read the first chapter after you read the last. I thought it was suspenseful and thought-provoking. Kinda bummed about Jack's relationships. And, when I was a college student, was I that rude and obnoxious?
Rating:
Summary: a meditation on loss
Review: It is easy to come under the spell of Frederick Busch's almost meditative writings on loss.Girls is no exception. Jack is a security guard on a school campus. Fanny is a registered nurse at a local hospital. Their marriage is being destroyed due to the loss of their only child, a baby named Hannah. There is blame. Their is truth. Their is sheilding from the truth. There is pain. A minister and his wife, the Tanners, have a daughter who is a student at Jacks school. She dissappears and is feared kidnapped. Jack a former MP in Vietnam, although just a security guard, is asked to help find Hannah, the girl. Because of the estrangement of Jack and Fanny, Jack gets involved with a professor at the school.Throughout the book we wonder at how Hannah died. Not untl the end do we find the full facts about Hannahs death and the missing daughter of the Tanners.A meditation on loss.
Rating:
Summary: wish i had listened to your reader from brooklyn ny
Review: not worth the time; felt like it was written for a bad made-for-tv movie . . .
Rating: 
Summary: Devastating loss and the road to recovery
Review: On the surface, this would appear to be a mystery. Jack is a college cop and spends his days patrolling campus, in an effort to keep affluent students from self-destructive activities. His wife, Fanny, is an ER nurse, facing life and death challenges each time she goes on shift. Neither can deal with the overwhelming grief at the loss of their baby daughter. At the crux of their grief is Fanny's memory that she last saw her daughter in Jack's arms; she can remember little else. The emotionally stronger Jack is afraid should Fanny remember what could destroy her fragile psychological balance. Jack displaces his grief as he joins the search for a missing girl. Although he senses that the missing child is dead, through his investigation Jack finds his own salvation. His struggle towards wellness drives a wedge between Jack and Fanny, who is so desperately trying to maintain her own sanity. The realization of the murderer's identity strikes Jack along with his increasingly stronger grasp of life. Everything comes at a price: a marriage, peace of mind, the ability to make human connections. The reader cannot help but wish that Jack might find light and purpose in his life in this well-written, often poetic novel.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Controversial and Glorious
Review: Our college has a mystery book club. I don't read mysteries generally, but I liked the idea of all of us talking about books. When I recommended they read Girls, I figured everyone would love it as I did. Silly me. My colleagues (with only one exception) hated it. They hated Jack. They hated the story. They hated everything except the dog. I felt so bad until I realized that this is not a book for mystery lovers. Mystery lovers want tidy stories; there's comfort in a good mystery that makes life seem to have some sense, some logic. But Busch's writing is not a mystery of that type. It's a love story. It's a religious tract. It's a war story. It's the kind of book that grabs you by the throat and shakes you alive, whether you want to be or not. And readers who, for whatever reason, would prefer not to be shaken, hate the book. Busch is one of my favorite writers. He is magical and honest and always moves me deeply. But he does not write mysteries.
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