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Rating: 
Summary: cape breton gold
Review: be careful of this fiction. a triangle of woods and water and obsessions. cadillac dreams and hemlock nightmares. where does the end begin and the living end? the last chapter is an amazing drive through the last minutes of an innocent lost. there is more here than meets the sea.
Rating: 
Summary: A Gem of a Book
Review: Cape Breton Road by D.R. MacDonald is the story of a young man with a good heart but a penchant for taking risks like "borrowing" fancy cars. Banished from the US to live with his uncle in Canada, he picks a spot high up in the hills to secretly cultivate marijuana, a cash crop "guaranteed" to buy his independence. When he falls painfully, hopelessly in love with the uncles live-in girlfriend, the tension and bitterness between the two men begins to mount. Cape Breton Road is a charming story that holds you in suspense as you hope against hope that this wholesome but naive young man won't get caught at some of his "indiscretions". Beautiful prose, wonderfully descriptive and insightful . . .a work of art.
Rating:
Summary: A Gem of a Book
Review: Cape Breton Road by D.R. MacDonald is the story of a young man with a good heart but a penchant for taking risks like "borrowing" fancy cars. Banished from the US to live with his uncle in Canada, he picks a spot high up in the hills to secretly cultivate marijuana, a cash crop "guaranteed" to buy his independence. When he falls painfully, hopelessly in love with the uncles live-in girlfriend, the tension and bitterness between the two men begins to mount. Cape Breton Road is a charming story that holds you in suspense as you hope against hope that this wholesome but naive young man won't get caught at some of his "indiscretions". Beautiful prose, wonderfully descriptive and insightful . . .a work of art.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor ending killed it for me
Review: I found this to be a decent story up to the end. Would Innis get off Cape Breton? What would come of the love triangle between him, his uncle and his uncle's girlfriend. The ending did not answer these and left me disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: cheated
Review: I gave this book three stars for one reason. It had a very unsatisfactory ending. I felt cheated. The conclusion was not an ending in the real sense.It left several questions unanswered. The most important ones being the fate of the protagonist and his uncle. The author either ran out of interest, or made the beginners error of letting the reader come up with his own ending. The book and characters was so very vivid and beautifully drawn that you could literally breathe the air and atmosphere. Then we are left high and dry. This writer is no amateur. He is brilliant. I loved this book. And because I did, because I cared about the characters, i wish he had done a better job on the conclusion. Still and all, I intend to read his other books. I guess that is the real test.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing, but ultimately a letdown.
Review: I was totally enraptured by this novel about a 19-year-old boy ousted from the U.S. for stealing cars, and sent back to the place of his birth, Cape Breton Island, Canada. I was enraptured, that is, until the end when everything fell apart. It was an interesting tale about Innis, who just wanted to raise a small crop of weed in the woods and then make enough money from the sale of that weed to enable him to escape the confines of the island. Of course, along the way, he meets some wonderful characters, who teach him the value of the old-time ways. The end just didn't feel right to me, with Innis taking a giant leap backwards after all the believable little steps he had taken forward.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read: Cape Breton Road
Review: Other reviewers have given plot details and discussed their reactions to the novel's ending, so I'll just cut to the chase: Cape Breton Road is amazingly well-written -- without the prolixity and gratuitous detail of so many contemporary novelists. Its prose is lean and spare, and therefore intense. Every detail strikes the reader as authentic; every experience woven into the plot has been "earned" or "lived" -- come by honestly and set down with something akin to reverence. Its presentation of nature and its impact on the observer are fine and true, reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence at his best, as in Sons and Lovers. Cape Breton Road is destined to become a word-of-mouth classic.
Rating:
Summary: thumbs down
Review: This was a well-written tragedy. I compare it to a Shakespeare tragedy. I didn't like the ending but it wasn't that I didn't like what the author wrote. I kept hoping Innis would make better choices. It was that hope that kept me reading to the end. And, of course, the author's wonderful descriptions of Nova Scotia's people, woods, water, events also kept me reading with great enjoyment. So even though I didn't like the ending, I loved the book.
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