Rating: 
Summary: lyrical, charmed, but too abruptly drawn shut
Review: Ann Patchett's "Bel Canto" brings together mighty and meek, old and young, from all corners of the globe. A translator, an opera singer, a sick, chess-playing terrorist, and fifteen soldiers who still sleep like children - when they're all confined to a mansion for several months, the boundaries between them muddy. Patchett shows us the humanity in all these veneers, the unexpected pairings and unlikely heroes and the passions each prisoner - terrorist and hostage alike - discovers.The book starts out slowly: a state dinner in honor of a foreign businessman, attended by two hundred people he doesn't know. Even when the party is invaded by terrorists and the guests are held hostage, there seems little to novelize about the characters' sharp personas. But appearances gradually fall away, and everyone becomes more complicated, and more human, than his job title. They are all slaves to their duties, but their sudden, lengthy imprisonment frees them. "Bel Canto" is masterfully written, thoughtful, and satisfying. Its one weak point is its sudden, hastily foreshadowed ending. Instead of fate, the novel's final pages feel like something the rest of the book manages to avoid: a carefully planned maneuver gone awry.
Rating:
Summary: mesmerizing
Review: I've never read a book with such poignancy as "Bel Canto" provides its readers. Ann Patchett delivers a performance of the imagination that pulls the reader in with teeth clenched and eyes unblinking. As terrorists and hostages are conjoined by one operatic voice, myriad personalities and endless hours of reflection, their lives are unexpectedly reviewed, revised and renewed. Patchett's characters were forced to open their eyes to life, to who they were upon becoming deeply introspective without the adornment of the simplest of everyday luxuries. While reading this novel, one can't help but to consider the direction of his/her own life, as we now live in a country we once thought of as impenetrable, just as the characters in "Bel Canto" believed the party they were attending to be safe territory. Devastatingly difficult to put down and resonating with emotion, this book shines with brilliance.
Rating: 
Summary: An overall good book
Review: I would recommend this book to someone who doesn't mind reading a slightly long book with a wonderful storyline. The story is about a terrorist group taking a party at the Vice President's house hostage. The terrorists wanted to kidnap the President but he is not attending the party. They decide instead to hold the entire party hostage until their demands are met. Over time, the hostages learn to adapt to their new life and get along with each other and even the terrorists. Towards the end, the hostages no longer want to be rescued. This book would appeal to the adventurous romantic person. There is a great deal of action and romance with the hostages and even the terrorists and the hostages. I would give this book four stars because the book is slightly unrealistic with the romance between some of the hostages and terrorists and how the hostages begin to enjoy living in the Vice President's house. If you can manage to get past this, you are in for a wonderful story. It teaches you a lot about hostage situations and how the government reacts to them. I think if you try you could read this book and enjoy it greatly.
Rating:
Summary: Patchett's Characters are amazingly real and passionate
Review: Ann Patchett lights up many diverse characters from all over the world to bring them together in an odd situation in Bel Canto. Each person has their own history, own background, and own personal story to be told. The way Patchett weaves the different perspectives into the story makes the novel an easy page-turner. You too will fall in love with Roxane and her beautiful voice after reading this story!
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't live up to the hype....
Review: I read this book after seeing the title on several lists - awards and whatnot - and I was very disappointed. I agree with other reviewers who say that any romance under these circumstances would be ridiculous. Once the romances started in earnest, the book became just another romance novel. I'm all for light beach reading, but I hadn't expected this book to be in that catagory. Maybe I should have waited for summer to read it!!
Rating: 
Summary: Not her best effort
Review: Was excited to read Bel Canto, since Magician's Assistant was flawless. This one is all in the language: Patchett writes like her character Roxanne Cross supposedly sings, but the story was weaker than usual. Didn't care enough about any of the hostages or terrorists til too many months into the saga.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional!
Review: An intimate and catapulting journey into a world that is becoming sadly familiar to all of us. The richly developed characters leave you longing for more at the end of this modern day romantic tragedy.
Rating:
Summary: What was the point?
Review: A four and a half month hostage crisis. Hostages sneaking around at night to make love. And a Japanese translator that speaks any language the author can think of all tied together by an ending that will leave you confused and disappointed What kind of story is this? I will admit, however, that Patchett writes well, but I do not think that the story itself is worthy of the awards it has received.
Rating:
Summary: Deus ex macharena
Review: Any sympathy and sense of versimilitude that Patchett may have engendered in her characters in the course of the novel was destroyed by the utterly incredible and unfounded epilogue. What a letdown!
Rating:
Summary: A Beautifully Strange and Lyrical Story
Review: Without the publicity that Bel Canto received as a result of its recognition through the Pen/Faulkner Award I would have passed this book by in a hearbeat. The brief description on the back of the book didn't seem to indicate that it was the type of story I had any interest in reading. Yet, after hearing about its recognition, I picked it up again and took a look. I started reading the first few pages in a bookstore and before I knew it, I was hooked. Ann Patchett's writing is simple, elegant and almost lyrical. It quickly becomes somewhat hypnotic. While the story is one set in a South American embassy that has been taken hostage, it is much more a tale about how we build relationships with others by stopping all of our frenetic activity and paying attention to one another as human beings. In Bel Canto, some odd and beautiful relationships develop between the hostages themselves, and in some cases, between the hostages and their captors. Ultimately, Bel Canto reminds me that I need to slow down and hold myself hostage to more moments in my own life. As busy as I may become, there is no going back in time to simply pay attention to the people I have passed by and not given much thought to. I think Bel Canto is a wonderful story; a good lesson on the value of simple human encounter and the spiritual rewards that we find in paying attention to the people we travel the earth with every day. A really fine read. A deserving prizewinner! Daniel J. Maloney
Saint Paul, Minnesota
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