Rating: 
Summary: One damn fine summer read for school
Review: This book, a summer read recommendation from my school, was probably one of my favorite books. If you love action and the wild, then this book is for you. If you don't, then you'll still like it. This was my first Abbey book and I was very impressed. He paints your imagination with vivid images of wherever they are. He uses his knowledge of the great midwest to describe everything to its fullest detail. Doc the intellectual, Bonnie the sex appeal, Smith the desert man, and Hayduke the crazy make for an exciting team. This is the first book that when I finished, I dreamt i was one of the characters that night and the story continued in my head. If you want a good read, then here is a very good story.
Rating:
Summary: Tilting at windmills
Review: This is a great book. Edward Abbey was an amazing writer, and despite some tense shifts, he was stylistically incredible and very unique. I would recommend this book to anyone -- it's interesting environmentally, but also well-written.
Rating:
Summary: Good As American Beer
Review: I just finished reading Monkey Wrench Gang for the second time. The first time, in college I didn't care for it, skipped through it, thought it was low grade schlock that wasn't worthy the effort of my philosophical, overly cerebral mind.
Then 9 years of life happened and man, I now realize this is one of the best books ever written because it meets the two basic criteria:
1) entertainment
2) convey an idea
I don't read as much anymore because frankly, the history channel and discovery channel are just as informative without putting me to sleep. But this book is paced to move and the characters are actually worth getting to know. Also, Abbey spends time on descriptions of a landscape as big as the sky but doesn't fuss with pages of set-up or description of inane, everyday things. His characters live in a world that moves and they move through it.
And the message is there too. Abbey says you can be concerned about the environment, live on the land, and get the subtle vibe of Mother Earth without pooping in a PVC tube. People who like shlitz can have high ideals, pick-up trucks aren't meant to be washed (much), and people who are offended by Abbey's lack of PC protocol probably wouldn't survive in the environment he loved so much. And you gotta love the fact that the only female character in the book is the composite of a 13-year-old boy's female fantacy.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointing book....
Review: After reading "Fool's Progress", I began to become interested in Edward Abbey's other books. So I read "Monkey Wrench Gang", probably one of his better known ones, and I came away from it quite disappointed. Yes, I know it was the 70's, when it was written, but did we really need a stereotypical J.A.P feminist and a flat ex-Green Beret, who loves violence and to litter. The sentiments that the dam at Glen Canyon ruined the Colorado seem right, but that was the book's only strength. By the time I got to the end, I didn't care what happened to the characters, although I give it credit for not being a "hollywood" ending.
Rating: 
Summary: Hey...It's the Seventies. What do you expect?
Review: This is another book that is clearly a product of its times. The "gang" itself consist of the usual gang of 1970s era idiots. Most notably, the rich, quasi-establishment doctor--who's still hip and supports the destruction of earthmoving machines by funding everything the gang does and smokes high grade pot--who is kind of married to the hot babe; the same hot babe who is one of those completely self assured & liberated kind of gals that puts out every where and with pretty much every one; the ragged "handyman" character, who's pick-up truck proclaims his home town to be a burg underwater courtesy of the Glen Canyon dam, and smokes pot; a big scruffy, hairy, beer swilling pot smoking vet, who knows what he knows, and ain't no one the boss a' him, but despite his distaste (even disgust) for self assured and liberated gals, he demonstrates his respectful, sensitive side by [having sex with the liberated gal]; and some mysterous character in black who rides a horse, and appears every once in while for really no particular reason. Like I said--It's the seventies.........Did anyone pick up this book and think they were reading "Look Homeward Angel?" Probably not. I liked the book--I think the prose style is fun. But it is not Ezra Pound. Speaking of what else this book is "not," some of the previous reviews took the book to task for not adequately explaining or justifying the terroristic acts of destruction. That is certainly true. This book is no political manifesto; this book is written for people who already believe that development is "bad"--not even that "nature is good," because Hayduke's (the hairy vet) throwing beer cans around is portrayed as a good thing. But I live in the west, and I grew up in San Diego. I've seen earthmovers destroy the land, and housing developments move across the horizon like a consuming fire. "Monkey Wrench Gang" is not "Unsafe at any Speed," and I did not need it to be. That said -- While the book starts with a bang at the Glen Canyon Dam (to coin a phrase), and the initial interplay of the characters is fun, as the book wears on (and I do mean "wears"), it gets tiresome. If I wanted to read poorly written sex scenes between shaggy man-beasts and hot seventies "libbers," I'd probably borrow books from the sitting president's library. That's not what I expected, and readers frankly deserve better. But the ending, especially, is not good. I could *****easily***** have come up with an alternative ending that may not have saved this book--but at least doesn't ruin it the way Abbey does. I have to rank the ending as one of the top five worst endings to books ever. And I mean ever. So--If you have any interest in any aspect of Earth First! Or want to relive the 1970s as the 1970s thought they were lived, or if you want to know why your parents are so weird, or if you want to scare all the teachers at your school who haven't actually *read* this book (the same idiot teachers who also think "Catcher in the Rye" and "Huck Finn" are subversive, having read neither), this is your book. It's an easy, shallow read. And if you're not disappointed with the ending, then I'm disappointed in you.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiration for Activists
Review: The most important thing about this book is the fact that Abbey doesn't spend time trying to convince you that what Doc, Abbzug, Hayduke, and Seldom Seen are doing is right. They simply do what they do and there is no time for questions (usually thanks to Hayduke!) The problem many activists face is despair. Sometimes, even though they know deep down something MUST be done, there are too many questions, too many problems, too many variables. Often they are afflicted with what is called "paralysis by analysis," which can happen to any one, in any position. But like in martial arts, as in Taoism and Zen Buddhism, we learn to let go and flow with your emotions and instincts - not to be burdened by worry and doubt, fear and anxiety. True learning, afterall, comes not from books and instruction, but from direct experience - DIRECT ACTION. And that, I feel, is the most important lesson from The Monkeywrench Gang. The Gang is constantly on the run, and is going from one action to the next without much time to doubt themselves and worry themselves into despondency. The characters are, for the most part, active, alive, and in high spirits. And this is because even though the question of "why" they are doing what they are doing keeps coming up, they refuse to waste time answering it when the Wilderness needs them.
Rating:
Summary: A highly overrated book.
Review: I believe this book has been highly overrated. Somehow the theme of property destruction didn't quite amuse me. Abbey's attempts at humor didn't amuse me, either. The abundance of profanities got in the way of the story's fluidity. In general, the book lacked any sort of real profundity, wit, diversity, or clarity.
Sure, there are a few pages worth reading, but it's mostly a ridiculous. . .rant.
Rating:
Summary: POWERFUL
Review: Environmentalist: before you get involved in any movement, you should read this book. Politicans: If you want to understand the environmentalist psyche ... read this book. Teachers: If you want to advance your Students activism ... read this book.
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