Reasonable Maniacs : For the Love of Northern Ireland

Rating:
Summary: I LOVE THIS BOOK!
Review: For anyone interested in the conflict in the North of Ireland, this is the book for you. In fact, anyone who likes Ireland, check this out. The book is well-written and the story wonderfully told. I couldn't put it down! The romance was terrfic and the sex HOT! This is one of the best, most accurate "Belfast" books I've read in years. GET IT!

Rating:
Summary: Good story
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by the book. I enjoyed learning about the history of an 800 year old war and how it affects those living under the stress of conflict. Add in the human interest that the author provides and it was a very enjoyable, defintely readable book. What I particularly enjoyed was how the author painted a very picturesque story of Northern Ireland and its citizens.

Rating:
Summary: Believing Reasonable Maniacs
Review: While the author is, without a doubt, knowledgable of Irish history and the conflict that has plagued Northern Ireland, his plot and his story leave one confused in a maze of historical facts, depictions of real-life conflicts, and, unfortunatley, a completely incredulous love/lust/hate affair between Reason and Wilder.

Indeed, passion and sexual tension are an interesting part of any novel, but the reader is asked to believe the persistence with which the male characters (almost ALL all of them, at that) seek Reason, regardless of her apathy, even hostitlity toward them. One keeps asking whether there is a shortage of women who can accomodate and respond to the sexually-overcharged males that seem to desperately abandon themselves to this extravagant beauty, making her the center of their existence.

Aside from its ostensible political and social commentary, the novel's pervasive "love story" is hard to digest. And, when Reason is not busy in an intimate physical relationship with one of Wilder's aquaintances, her endless questions (She doesn't know who the RUC is, this being only one of at least a dozen inquiries) and imprudent decisions (going down into a mysterious cellar where IRA men are hiding and escaping, through Wilder's intercession, of course) become tiresome.

Aside from providing a plethora of information of the background of the conflict and existing difficulties encountered by people who live in Northern Ireland, Reasonable Maniacs asks too much from a reasonable reader.