Rating: 
Summary: Great for everyone (not easy)
Review: I remember when an older cousin gave this book to me when I was about 15. I read it as a story the first time. But later I understood the impact of the words as they became ideas on how to view the world. The view that Dan imparts is not some complex, new age philosopy of personal power, but a simple, heartfelt path towards peace and service to your fellow humanity. These things are not achieved through some miraculous overnight transformation to an elevated state of consiousness, but through an effort to realize that nothing is here but now. An effort to make every day a living meditation. (By the way, it's not supposed to be easy... it's life not nirvana). A great read for anyone and serves as a great intro to Dan's other books.
Rating: 
Summary: Great ideas about how to live life.
Review: A friend has been raving about this book for years and years. In some ways, I was disappointed, but in others, quite rewarded, when I finally picked it up and read it.First, about its merits: when reading WAY OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR, keep a highlighter handy and be prepared to use it a lot. It's full of wonderful truths that will help you become a warrior whose "life is not about imagined perfection or victory; ... [but]about love." Many of the truths the book has to offer, I have had to learn through experience. I rather wish I'd read it twenty years ago. It might have saved me a lot of time! It's great to have some of my personal beliefs affirmed, and of course to become a true "warrior", there are things I still have left to accomplish. As for the literary aspect of the book, I found the writing rather clumsy. Most annoying to me was Millman's habit of trying to set up little "zingers". There is very little craft in this book, and perhaps it would have been more honest of the author to just say what was really on his mind, without the excuse of having a character meet Socrates in a service station. A very worthwhile book. Read it for the ideas--now that you know the truth about the writing style, as Millman puts it, "when you know the horse is wild, you can deal with it appropriately."
Rating:
Summary: Only part of The Way
Review: I have now read this book twice. After the first time I read it, it did in fact help me to change my outlook on life. About two years after reading it the first time, I felt like I needed to do something to really change my life, and so for guidence, I re-read this book. The second time through, it depressed me. I listened to all the things Dan's mentor was telling him, and I started to believe that this was the only way to live correctly; that if you didn't life the life of a peaceful warrior, you were wasting your life. This was made worse by the fact that I had no mentor like Dan's. It later dawned on me that this book should be used as a guide, rather than a road map to happiness. I love this book, it inspired me during some of my darkest times, but I feel that it is important to keep in mind that this is not the only way to happiness. Read it in conjunction with other books. I reccoment Siddhartha and The Alchemist.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic for Me
Review: Depending where you are in your life, this book will be hit or miss. If you're starting to feel disillusioned about life and its meaning, then this book could be a story you'll really relate to. I read it when I was 15. Even though it's a story in some ways I couldn't relate to - I wasn't in college, and I didn't have an unlikely teacher that I met in gas station - I could relate to his struggle to feel alive and give his life meaning. I could remember in high school how the few real moments I had were playing soccer or spending time with a special girl. Kind of like the book's protagonist until he meets Socrates. Outside of those fleeting moments, my life felt pretty unspecial and meaningless. I felt very lost without purpose. The positive messages and the profound questions in this book are really inspiring, moving, and uplifting. To read of Dan's adventures grappling with culturally-obscured truths to life was exciting. So this book will always have a special place in my heart. It spoke to that sleeping part of myself that thirsts to "know thyself". But now I've moved on to new books, having used Way of the Peaceful Warrior as a stepping stone.
Wonderfully bright, active prose helps keep the pages turning. This is helpful when there are so many stunning ideas that don't need obsfucation caused by sophisticated mumbo-jumbo. One mistake I notice is that people tend to think because the book is easy reading for a student in middle-school that the ideas are unsophisticated. Go ahead and read Being and Nothingness, and then come back to Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I'm sure you'll have a larger, more complex vocabulary, but I'm not sure you'll have any deeper ideas. I think it's a tribute to Dan Millman that he could present fundamental philosophical questions in a way that connects them to real life and everyday happiness and suffering without writing about war, climbing a moutain, or something else extreme. I looked at my own life in new ways after reading this book.
Hopefully you'll enjoy this book like I did.
Rating:
Summary: synchronistic
Review: This book is great but only for what it is! It is a stepping-stone book into heaving spiritual teachings out there. However it is a great first step. I recommend this as excellent inspiration for those people who are struggling with their mundane existences and know there is something more out there but can't put there finger on it. As stated it should be considered as introductory, and inspirational, reading and on that basis is a must-read for the person looking to break out of his or her current paradigm.
Rating:
Summary: I look back at this book fondly... for where it led me.
Review: Saying a book "changes lives" makes one suspect there's more hyperbole than truth to the claim, but I can honestly say that this book literally was the catlyst to my spiritual growth, and toward changing virtually every aspect of my life. It is filled with wisdom and heart, and manages to be entertaining as well. From Dan Millman's book, I went on to Joseph Campbell to the Dalai Lama to any number of other thinkers and people who are merging Western thought with Eastern spirituality... and all of it began for me with this book. There are no accidents. I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore in Atlanta a few years ago. The cover had the blurb that it "changes lives." I didn't expect that much. But it indeed helped me to change my life. When I go back to it now, it's like visiting an old friend. Real or not, "Scorates" is a great medium to get across some wise words on how to live a more fulfilling and rational life.
Rating: 
Summary: I anticipated a good read, but was let down.
Review: I was encouraged by the reviews, as well as a college-athlete-roommate, to pick up this book. But my expectations were not met at all, probably because I'm just not in tune with all this new-age stuff going around these days. I certainly won't pick up 'The Celestine Prophecy' now! I read the amazon.com interview w/Dan Millman, and noted that a favorite of his is Hesse's 'Siddhartha', which strikes a cord, because that's a favorite of mine as well. -That was a book that brought about much reflection and insight- but for some reason, 'The Way of the Peaceful Warrior' fails to evoke these responses. Maybe I let the excessive melodrama of Dan's character get to me. Or maybe it was the writing style in general. I mean, what do you think of this??: "But Joy, you know I want you to be with me always. I want to have children with you and keep you warm at night. Our life could be so fine together." "Danny," she said, "there's something else I should have told you before. I know I look and act-well, the age you might expect me to be. But I'm only 15 years old." I stared at her, my jaw slack. "That means that for months I've had an awful lot of illegal fantasies." All three of us laughed, but my laughter was hollow. A piece of my life had fallen and broken. "Joy, I'll wait. There's still a chance." (p.177) ---I mean, this kind of writing wears on ya after a while. But I finished the book, and feel humbled in the respect that I ask, "Can some-one explain to me what that was all about??" There are principles in the book that I agree with and practice myself, but the thought of this book being an eye-opener, or dispensing wisdom beyond the basics of Buddhism, does not pan out. I'll stick with 'Siddhartha' or 'Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintainence'.
Rating: 
Summary: wow. This book did change my life.
Review: Way of the Peaceful Warrior changed me. It transformed me into a being who will never trust the title of a book again. The degree pseudo-intellectualism and ridiculous insight within the pages of this book are only surpassed by the one-dimensionalness of the characters. I was forced by an employer to read this book and it only took a glance at the cover art and quick scan of the blurb to blow the top off of my lame-o-meter. The "sage" is a rude mystic who seems to hide every nugget of insight within a crusty coating of belittling insults. The progagonist is a somewhat dense, however sexually satisfied jock, who undergoes supernatural experiences vaguely reminiscent of peyote induced spirit quests. The entire time I read this story, I felt like I was listening to the ramblings of a person who has been brainwashed by a cult. If I were less opinionated, I would say that this book is not for me. Because I AM so opinionated, I'd say this book is not for anyone. If you haven't bought it, don't. If you have already purchased it, you could use it as a coaster.
Rating:
Summary: Comments by a Peaceful Warrior
Review: If there is one book that everyone should read, the Wao of the Peaceful Warrior is that book. Dan Millman has given his readers much in the way life changing revelations. This book does change lives. It changed mine!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: One great insight in a stew of ignorance
Review: The one useful lesson of this book is that we should all live in the present moment, without fretting over the past or the future. Every other insight seems half-baked, in part because young Dan Millman seems unfamiliar with any spiritual tradition of the East or West. Challenged by his mentor to say where he is, for example, Millman does not know. To be fair, the mentor won't accept a conventional address. He wants to know where the universe is, and Millman doesn't have faith or experience enough to say "in the mind of God," as one of the children in Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town," did. Stumped by questions like that and his mentor's puzzling answers to them, Millman falls for every New Age nostrum in the book. "Feel more and think less" becomes a key insight, even though it confuses innocence with primitivism and falsely implies that thought is always an obstacle to enlightenment (Thomas Aquinas could have disabused Millman and his mentor of that hilarious notion all by himself). Death to self loses most of its sacrificial character and becomes just another check off item on the list of things necessary for self-fulfillment through 'unreasonable happiness.' Meanwhile, Millman trips merrily along, wracked by doubt but winning gymnastics meets and boffing pretty groupies. Anyone looking for a better chronicle of the relationship between an old warrior and his young apprentice would do well to read Tom Brown Jr.'s book, 'The Tracker,' instead. That story comes from the same era but has more wisdom. Millman fans are advised to pass up "Peaceful Warrior" in favor of his later work in books like "The Inner Athlete."
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