Rating: 
Summary: Fast-paced and upredictable
Review: Lipman's humor is great! Her tale takes you on an unpredictable, yet plausible, path. I have moved Lipman's other titles to the top of my 'must read' list.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny--Heartbreaking--Until the end
Review: This book was great...It was a quick read and had many funny points...However, towards the end, it takes a turn towards the fanciful (sp?)...For those of you how have read it, remember the mushroom fiasco? The worst couldn't have happened because that would have totally ruined the point of the book...Truthfully, I think the book would have been just as good without that whole ordeal... Despite this one minor flaw, I found the book to be an enjoyable read...Pick it up...
Rating: 
Summary: I Felt it got a bit undeveloped towards the end.
Review: I really felt like her relationships with Kris and Robin were really undefined-and as they are the focus of the book, I think it would have been a little wiser to spend more time analysing these relationships not just towards the end but all the way through the book.
Rating:
Summary: A hilarious look at us vs. them in the 60's....
Review: Maybe you had to be a Jewish girl in a nice, middle-class family in the 60's to really like this book -- but I was and I did. The contrast in cuisine alone between the uptight Vermont WASPs and the groaning tables of the Catskills is worth the price of the book. Lipman does a good, if somewhat superficial, job with her main characters. Definitely recommended for airports, beaches, and your mother-in-law of the other persuasion.
Rating:
Summary: Her Best Yet
Review: Lipman outdoes herself in her latest outing! I was disappointed in "Isabel's Bed", and have been waiting for her to equal the wonderful "Then She Found Me". Here she seems to have rediscovered her voice, luckily for us.If you're expecting Checkov, forget it. Lipman's novels are light and humerous, and here she manages to say a lot in a thoroughly readable,enoyable way. Her details are right on (if you've ever been to a Catskills resort in the 60's you'll have to agree). And if the ending is a bit fluffy? It's just what's called for. So stop kvetching already and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: funny, funny, funny
Review: I really enjoyed this novel. I have been an Elinor Lipman fan for years, but I was disappointed with "Isabel's Bed". This current novel puts her right back up on my favorite authors list. At times I laughed out loud. I took this interesting book everywhere with me. Yes, it IS a light read, but sometimes that's just what hits the spot. I really began to enjoy her characters, and their witty conversations. And it was so very funny. This one is a definate thumbs up!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: What was the point....?
Review: What an utter disappointment. After an interesting beginning, I have to admit that I struggled to read the end of this book because I kept looking for that something that was promised. In the words of my daughter, yucky. The characters became flat and unbelievable. Ms. Lipman had the beginnings of some very interesting characters yet chose to develop none of them.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreaking and hilarious
Review: I'm having a hard time understanding the comments put forth here about a truly wonderful and brilliant book, one I've been buying up and giving to friends and relatives, by the way. I have been a longtime fan of Ms. Lipman's, having fallen in love with her sublime wit and social commentary years ago, and I feel that THE INN is by far her best book because it moves beyond anything she's done before. Like the best works of art, it is a nimble balance of the heartbreaking and the hilarious, with characters so well-drawn, so fully detailed and so capivatingly complex that they were indelible. Ms. Lipman's sense of time and place were so real as to be palpable--in part because she's such a master of the subtle detail...i.e. the Papagallo shoes and of course the Catskill suppers complete with flanken for the table! Robin not fully drawn? Balderdash! If she wasn't, then why was I so upset when she disappeared from these pages? Some readers said the book was predictable. Again, I am dumbfounded. I felt THE INN moved from one surprise to another, culminating in an ending I certainly didn't see coming. And I disagree totally with one reader who said the message was simply "Love Conquers All" and would advise that reader to take another look and discover the richness he missed. All's well that ends well?--not for every character in the book. Look again. In this novel beats a complex, complicated heart, one that says much about the nature of tolerance, guilt, hatred and yes--love, too. THE INN was exquisitly written, subtle, surprising--and important. I can't wait to see what Ms. Lipman will do next.
Rating:
Summary: A little light read
Review: This book was "Highly Recommended" in last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, and the story sounded just up my alley, so I was very excited to read it. I read the book in just over two days--a very easy read, and I found that while I enjoyed the story, there was little depth to any of the characters, and everything was very, very predictable. The most poignant moment was in the acknowledgements at the back of the book where the author thanked her mother for remembering a letter that she had received long ago. The book had the potential to be quite wonderful--it's an interesting subject and was set in an interesting time. It just didn't do too much for me.
Rating:
Summary: Frothy comedy sparks interest, but little thought
Review: Having read all of Elinor Lipman's previous works, I came to this one expecting a certain quality. Lipman maintains her deft touch of humorous realism, yet this latest novel falls a bit short of her others. Readers will quickly skim through this enjoyable read, but provoking thought, or even much emotion, is not high on this book's goals. This creates a disappointingly neutral distance between the reader and the main characters. The romance between Natalie and the youngest Berry boy is pleasant enough, but what happened to the romantic, undiscussed, tension between Natalie and his older brother? How did the Berry boys happen to never have picked up on their mother's anti-Semitism? And why the heck did Nelson even want to marry Robin "bland girl" Fife?!? These and many other questions arise during a reading of The Inn at Lake Devine. Unfortunately, though Lipman (and the reader, for that matter) clearly enjoys her story and characters, there are too many unanswered questions for this to be a completely absorbing, fulfilling read.
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