Rating: 
Summary: Reading this is like a ride at an amusement park!
Review: This book was really a fun read, but it went on just a little too long. Or maybe it covered it's own tracks once too often. The characters are truly colorful, and the story sets up fast. At the beginning, you feel like you want to settle in for a good long read. Along the way, notes about fads and fetishes from ancient times until today are splashed throughout the book. Descriptions of todays cool coffeehouse chic are hilarious.
The first time you read about the research company and it's backwards way of moving forward, you will be laughing out loud. The second time, you may smile. After that, you get really tired of covering the same flat ground. In my opinion, the story screamed for virtual reality: a more three- dimensional view of research funding and corporate life (there's no shortage of satire material there.)
The most uncomfortable part of the book is that the ending is disappointingly predictable. Despite this drawback, the story stays with you: after reading the Bellwether, you can't stop looking for bellwethers wherever you go.
Rating: 
Summary: Bellwether is a quirky look at science, life and love.
Review: Connie Willis' Bellwether is both amusing and thought provoking. During the course of this novel, Ms. Willis investigates the extremes to which people will go to 'fit in' to society, and how social climate can affect different aspects of existence. Even scientific research, that bastion of logic and unemotionalism, is swept up in the ebb and tide of the herd instinct. And yet, through it all, Ms. Willis' protagonist, battered on all sides by tidal waves of fadism, maintains a firm anchorhold on the really important issues: truth, love, self-respect and common sense. Her individuality highlights the almost comic efforts of the masses to follow the latest fashion. In the end, the Bellwether paints an optimistic picture of man the individual, if not of man the social animal. Love, self-respect, and self-determination wins out, leaving the reader heartened that somewhere, deep down inside, man is still a thinking animal, capable of great foolishness and great accomplishments.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind laughing a lot at society and a little at oneself. Although this book takes place in the future, the roots of the society she protrays exist today, making the scenery seem strangely familiar. Don't be surprised to find yourself caught up in the protagonist's search for a little slice of truth, and moved when the truth finally catches her unaware.
Rating: 
Summary: Trendsetter
Review: Start your own fad by being seen reading this book in public;
before you know it, everyone will be talking about "Bellwether"
around the watercooler. Connie Willis explores all sorts of fads, from
past fads (e.g., the hula hoop) to dining trends, fashion, and management
trends as her protagonist strives to understand fads, find romance, and
keep unfashionable works of "great literature" in circulation at the
library.
NB: This book is classified as science fiction, probably because Connie
Willis writes lots of SF.
Rating:
Summary: Science fiction? Or just plain entertaining?
Review: This book is not for lovers of hard core sci-fi. In fact, it has few elements of traditional sci-fi.
What Bellwether does contain is an entertaining plot, given substance by a subtext of chaos theory in action, sympathetic and realistic characters, and satirical humor. Willis takes aim at fads and trends, modern romance, and corporate lifestyles, and she delivers the goods.
Douglas Coupland + John Irving x Kurt Vonnegut.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining & Insightful!
Review: An easy, humorous, and enjoyable read, full of fascinating tidbits about science and weird & embarrassing Americana... a bit of romance, and some self-helping chaos theory. If your life seems unrelentingly chaotic, you couldn't find a better book to help you laugh and gain a fresh, uplifting perspective on all the "mess" and those annoying people around you. Takes place in the Boulder area, so you Buffs will enjoy the setting
Rating:
Summary: Well, HEAVEN FORBID!
Review: You know, it really irks me when a wonderful book like Bellwether comes out and all these "well-read" types come out of the woodwork to tell you how awful it was because it wasn't like her other work, didn't turn out how they wanted, maybe wasn't as deep as something else she'd written....Please read it anyway! I loved this book! I have read it many times, loaned it to many friends, bought it for birthdays...you name it! I love the fact that it's not like her other books. I love that Connie Willis can allow herself to branch out. She is a fine author in any incarnation, and just because it doesn't focus on spaceships or aliens or time-travel, doesn't mean it can't be science fiction. You got your science. You got your fiction. Voila! And if nothing else, the ending will make reading the book all worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Screwball Comedy
Review: I love this book to death! It's marketed as science fiction -- mainly because Connie Willis is a science-fiction author -- but I don't think it really is. It's a novel about science and scientists. It's also a wacky, screwball romantic comedy. It's a great deal of fun! Lighthearted and funny, but it also deals with some deeper issues -- specifically, the nature of scientific discovery. It was a joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A bureaucratic satire that is...
Review: ...heavy on bureaucracy and light on satire.
Take all the plot typically found in a three-panel Dilbert cartoon -- stretch it out to a thin 247 pages -- and you have Bellwether.
So despite the fact that I'm fascinated with fads, emergent systems, chaos theory, etc., the book failed to hold my interest.
Given the high praise that Connie Willis has received for her other books, I'll assume that this was a rare misfire.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, funny, lightweight
Review: If you're looking for your first Connie Willis book, read The Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, or Passage first. Any of those three are so much better than this. But, Bellwether is fun, sometimes funny, and a lightweight read. It's short enough to blow through, uncomplicated enough not to require flipping back to be sure you didn't miss anything. Anyone who works in an office will recognize all of the office characters and politics - they're universal sure gags we all love to identify with.
Rating:
Summary: An attempt at satire that falls flat
Review: I thought long and hard as to why the humor in this book (and the very similar "Passage") didn't work for me, when at the same time I found "To say nothing of the dog" by the same author to be hilariously funny.
And I think I got it: The uneven mood of this book made me treat as if it was simple fiction instead of satire, with unfortunate results.
You see, Bellwether's cast is divided between "serious" characters - such as the heroine and her love interest, and "parody" characters - most everybody else. The serious characters' thoughts, desires and actions tend to be realistic, plausible and, well - serious. The rest of the book`s characters act in an exaggerated, over-the-top manner - a tried and true satiric device - supposedly in order to stress the inherent absurdity of the stereotypes they represent.
And it backfires:
The presence of those serious characters - coupled with most readers' familiarity with the academic/office environment - makes it rather hard to read the story as satire. Time and again I found myself annoyed by depictions of characters which I felt were flat, silly and totally unrealistic. "Of course they are! It's supposed to be a parody!" I kept telling myself, but to no avail.
Another satiric device the writer employs - namely, repeatedly presenting the same ludicrous event in order to highlight its silliness - also fails to deliver, coming off as simply aggravating more often then not.
In short: If you already read and enjoyed "Passage", you should ignore my review and buy this book. If, on the other hand, you only read Willis's more evenly-mooded "Doomsday book" or "To say nothing of the dog" you may be in for a nasty surprise.
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