Rating: 
Summary: Good characters, but grossly misleading on Christianity.
Review: Satan wins in this book: the serpent destroys one child, and through that event it destroys the faith of another, destroys the potential of another, destroys the mission of the father, and sends the mother into such selfish desperation that she oversees the destruction of most of the others. Satan also has a new weapon: a best-selling novel which teaches that salvation is not through accepting what Christ did on the cross, but through attending church and water baptism. There were other silly mistakes of doctrine.The book was good for showing flaws in cultural understanding: a good example is the Baptist who thinks he can use a crocodile-infested river; but it fails to explain why he could not use a tub as he sometimes did in Georgia. And how much more powerful this theme would be if Kingsolver abandoned the misconceptions about Christianity! What if her characters had had all the difficulties in adjusting to a new culture, but then they slowly learned to adapt - not the message! - but the delivery of the message to the circumstances of the new culture. That would have been a powerful book. The father is a Baptist missionary. However, he is a poor Christian. He knows his Bible verses, but not what they mean, he bears no fruits of the Spirit, he misrepresents the Bible greatly, and he thinks his mission is to bring manners and proper dress as much as to save souls. Even within his own family, the father has failed to teach the essentials. The mother and children are not saved or thoroughly grounded in who Jesus is. They think all hardship is God's punishment and that there is always reward for hard work. God is supposedly punishing the father with haunting memories, but this is not Christian conviction, but rather an affliction of guilt. For the mother too, there is no healing, for she is still plagued years later. She never learned to have faith or hope, that God will forgive and heal you if you let him in. Thinking God will punish you for a sin of which you have since repented is counter to what the Bible says. Thinking God will always reward your hard work by granting your wishes - however irrelevant to his cause - is counter to what the Bible says. Thinking you can make your own path in God's service without listening to the voice of God is counter to what the Bible says. I found it difficult to determine if Kingsolver had an incomplete understanding of the Bible or if she was purposely endowing her character with an incomplete understanding too egregious for a Baptist preacher. The missionary family think God should protect them from everything, just like the natives expect from their gods. However, God does not promise to shield the believer from all evil: even Paul had a thorn in his flesh and Christ himself had crucifixion! What God does promise is to carry you through anything if you rely on him, and that they failed to do. This could have been an inspiring book, if Kingsolver had chosen to plague her characters and then have them, through faith and work, overcome those obstacles, but instead, she allows them to dissolve into nothing better than the superstitious natives they have come to teach. What is the point of the conflict if the characters don't grow from it? They remain self-righteous and they lose what little faith they had. It is not Africa which defeats or changes them so much as the failure of God to perform to their warped expectations. How much better the book would have been if the father understood his own faith and mission, and grew into both by Africa's influence. However, because they don't understand their own faith or mission, they are doomed to fail from the start. Kingsolver could have delivered her message about the atrocities of American foreign policy and the sophistry of American cultural arrogance, without casting the Christians with such pitiful inner resources. She shows a lack of empathy for her creations never before seen in her work. Even the writing disappointed me. It is a step up in complexity for her, with recurring themes and more symbolism, but I missed her simple elegance with which she captured my emotions in her earlier books. I wish I hadn't read this book. However, as the Bible says, God can take our times of trouble and make them productive. So shall I endeavor to do with this. I still wish Kingsolver's characters could have done the same.
Rating: 
Summary: another book that makes me want to write like Kingsolver!
Review: Barbara Kingsolver is the only author I read while clenching (and liberally using) a yellow highlighter in my right hand. First The Bean Trees, then Pigs in Heaven, now The Poisonwood Bible. She always touches me with her words and makes me want to be a better writer. She says what I wish I could. And, with my passion for Africa, this book is spot on for me. I loved letting the characters be developed for us in their own voices. I loved Adah's language. I wish we had heard from the woefully misguided father as well. I indulged myself and read it all in one week. But I so hated it to end. More, please, Ms. Kingsolver. Hurry and write another!
Rating:
Summary: Will speak to your soul
Review: I won't belabor the points already made, but if your perspective has been forever skewed by experience in Africa, Kingsolver puts into words everything most of us cannot. I have had my entire family read it and i think they understand me as a result. I couldn't put this book down (physically) even after I finished it, for several hours.
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Summary: Work of considerable beauty
Review: Some authors write one good book and quit. Some authors write one good book and should quit. Barbara Kingsolver writes one excellent story after another and gets better with each one. With The Poisonwood Bible, she was not content to create the great American novel. She conquered two continents. I admire and envy her extraordinary skill. The Poisonwood Bible will one day be on the classics shelf both for its messages and its considerable beauty.
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Summary: Emotionally Stirring Novel
Review: I had just finished Tom Wolfe's masterpiece, "A Man in Full", and wanted to read something that wouldn't be too big a letdown. I was therefore thrilled to find myself immersed in this emotionally gratifying, wonderfully written novel by Kingsolver. Although the author wears her politics on her sleeve, the tone doesn't become overly preachy and it prompted me to do further research on the history of the Congo. I love novels that teach as well as entertain. Missionaries don't fare particularly well, which may irritate some readers, but those that share the view that it takes a certain arrogance to tell a people that their centuries-old way of worship is wrong will applaud that sentiment here. An emotional journey.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent but misunderstood work
Review: I read this book almost as soon as it was available. Kingsolver has been criticized for wearing her political heart on her sleeve, but this is a strength, not a weakness in a culture that desperately needs to be better informed. Her use of the female story-tellers offers us a wonderful point of view in a time when the feminine perspective is still sadly unheard. I find it interesting, however, that reviews and synopses begin by describing this as a story about "Nathan Price and his family." While certainly the catalyst, Nathan is the least of the characters. The story is about Orleanna, Rachel, Adah, Leah, and Ruth May. Without realizing it, we are going along with an outdated notion of who represents the family. Though unintentional, it undermines the very shift in perspective that the book is trying to achieve. Still, don't let this deter you. READ THIS BOOK!
Rating: 
Summary: Great characters, but too much politics.
Review: I love Kingsolver's novels. She evokes a richness of time, people, and place that is so rare in popular fiction. Poisonwood didn't disappoint in regard to interesting and multi-faceted characters and setting. The women in this story are fascinating in their diversity, and the ways they come to deal with the situations that face them in the Congo. I especially enjoyed the humor that laced their narratives. This story was excellent until the last 100 pages when Kingsolver delved into the politics of the region. While I learned some valuable history lessons, I think novel could have ended much sooner. I hope Kingsolver keeps enlightening us with her outstanding fiction, but I hope she refrains from getting too political in future novels. Her voice is a crucial addition to contemporary women's fiction
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Summary: Kinsolver's most intriguing and captivating book.
Review: This book is a must read, especially for those persons who perceive themselves as superior to others based on their own self-righteous perceptions. This book helps those super self-righteous beings to see themselves in a more global light. Kingsolver's research is impeccable and makes this book historical fiction. The characters reach into your psyche in a three-dimensional way. You'll find yourself weeping, then chuckling, and sometimes even belly laughing. This book has far more depth than Kingsolver's other novels. Read it!
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Summary: Kingsolver's Best
Review: I first discovered Barbara Kingsolver several years ago and loved her novels, The Bean Trees, and Pigs in Heaven. Even though she, herself, is not Native American, her books stand as were beacons of enlightenment about their often misunderstood world today and have been praised throughout the world. The Poisonwood Bible is a more ambitious book, and the landscape is the Belgian Congo, but her voice lays bare the same kind of clashes and misunderstandings that exist between cultures. Well researched and deeply moving, it tells the story of a missionary's family from Georgia who move to the Congo in the late 1950s. The father is a religious fanatic, driven to convert the world to his brand of Christianity .His wife and four daughters have no choice but to respect his wishes. Using the technique of alternating first-person voices, each chapter is told from the point of view of these five female family members. A poisonwood tree grows by their house. It is beautiful but it causes rashes and boils on the skin. It's a great metaphor. There is the mother, Orleanna Price, who struggles daily with the effort of keeping her family together in a world that is suddenly devoid of electricity, plumbing and food. Precious wood must be found for the stove, water must be boiled to remove parasites, and vegetables do not grow. The oldest daughter, Rachel is 16. She misses her friends and her life in Georgia and yearns for nailpolish and hairdos. Then there are twins of 14: Leah and Adah. Both are smart and open to learn about the world around them but Adah cannot speak or move one side of her body. The littlest one, Ruth May, at age 5 teaches the native children to play games. Each one of these voices is totally distinct from each other and tells her tale in her own distinctive way. Their overlapping views of the same incident turned them into multifaceted prisms instead of simple story lines. I wanted nothing more to go on reading, finding myself in their world, feeling the heat and the beauty of Africa as each one, in her own way, discovered her own Africa. But Africa was changing even as they were . Revolution was happening. It was dangerous for the missionaries. The father refused to leave. And the family gets caught up in total upheaval. When one of the daughters dies and I felt the grief throughout my bones. It wasn't just happening to a person in a book. I had known her so well that I, too, mourned the loss and felt their struggle to leave the madness. Felt the raging fever of malaria, saw how each had changed. The last third of the book follows the surviving women through the next 30 years of African and American history. It is a political statement and it opened a world for me I never even knew existed. Often in books that span 40 years, the first part of the book is the best. But this book even got better as it moved along. It's 543 pages long and I was sorry to see it end. This is a truly important book. It sent me to the internet immediately to learn more. I've lived my comfortable life here in the United States all these years and never had any understanding about what Africa was like. In this one book, Ms. Kingsolver brings me there. She does it with her art. She is more than just telling a story. She is opening people's eyes. Hooray for her! I give this book my very highest recommendation. Read it!
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Summary: I could hardly put it down.
Review: This book is very well written and I would recommend it anytime, anywhere. The words flow on the pages and you gather a great deal of insight into this families dynamics. The individual stories, taking place at certain times, are magnificent. The story takes place at the time of the Belgian Congo and I wish we had a little more history in the story, but then again, that's not what this novel was about. It was about the family dynamics and what each and every one of them learned from their experiences in the Congo at this particular time and how it affected their lives and those around them. I loved how each character was dealt with.
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