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Women's Fiction

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

List Price: $15.00
Your Price: $10.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Poisonwood Bible is not for everyone-the truth can sting.
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible. I did not expect to from the synopsis provided, but I became absolutely absorbed in the lives of her characters. I was also struck by the author's brave decision to break so many American societal taboos. Criticizing the American government in its treatment of Africa and Africans, highlighting the hypocrisy and irony of American disdain for Africa, pointing out the egregiously bad treatment of blacks in America during the period and finally indulging in the final sin, a happy interracial marriage! My only criticism is the neatness of the conclusion. Evolved members of the family went forth to prosper and find peace. Father Nathan, who never changed his view of the world, and Rachel who refused to believe her looks would not solve everything, came to grief. If only the real world could achieve such justice. Reading some of the previously posted reviews I was not surprised to find some of the readers were condemnatory, or even irate. People raised to ignore or deny racial injustice and the patronizing interference of America in Third World countries would find this story hard to bear. Too much truth can sting!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great Story
Review: It's not very often that a fiction books comes along that so beautifully illustrates the real world. This book is well-written, insightful joy to read that employs excellent literary techniques.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So far so good!
Review: I haven't finished yet and already I am really enjoying this book. Kingsolver has given the characters 4 distinct voices that keep you involved and interested in the story. I would pass this along to my friends and family members.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If you liked "Things Fall Apart"...
Review: Kingsolver has taken the basic premises of Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" and shed a new light on them. The feminine perspective of African mission work that she presents complements Achebe's African perspective. I read "Things Fall Apart" a few months before reading "The Poisonwood Bible" and felt that it enhanced both books greatly. I've been a big fan of Kingsolver for a couple years, and she has failed to disappoint me yet.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: She did not find the real voice
Review: Arguably, this is her most "worked" book, but she came short in her effort. The transplation to the middle of Africa, the way the daughters talk, the way the novel resolves, all created a sort of false atmoshpere.

It was intelligent to use the girls as narrators, but this, paradoxically, and after the difficulties of establishing themselves, formed a non credible situation, and thus, the novel lost strength.

Perhaps it's time to start an interesting discussion about marketing and literature, and what deserves to go to print, or, at least, invest big marketing dollars

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Stereotyping christians
Review: While I found this book to be intriguing because of the setting, I also found it extremely disappointing in the picture it portrays of christians in the mission field. My pastor is head of the Foreign Mission Board for the Eastern Hemisphere and we always have missionaries visiting our church. They are always people who care about their families immensely and are answering a difficult call from the Lord. I have never met one that fit this horrid description of a man led by the Lord to evangelize others in foreign territory. While the character in the story had some life trauma's apparently causing him to become this unlikely zealot, it is very disturbing to cast this glow on people in the mission field. I am sorry I wasted the time to expect this book to improve. Oprah continues to choose literature that does not strengthen the body of Christ.

In Georgia

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Unusual story and characters, but not my favorite Kingsolver
Review: This book takes place in the Congo in the 1960s, when the country was fighting for independence from Belgium. It centers around Nathan & Orleana Price and their four daughters, who go there from Atlanta to do missionary work. The story shows how Nathan, blinded by his mindless determination to force the villagers to adopt his ways, never gets a clue about the people and the culture he has transplanted himself into. At the same time, he completely misunderstands his own family, and refuses to leave when they come in danger. He's is completely out of touch, and each of the women in his family learn to adapt in different ways. But the book is more about the four daughters and how they grow from that world-changing first year in the Congo into adults.

Each chapter is written from the perspective of one of the four daughters or the mother, which I found an interesting and effective device to help us understand the characters, both through their own eyes and through each other's eyes. The characters themselves are interesting and very different from each other, and I enjoyed getting to know them. One is an insecure prima donna, another a liberal intellectual, another a brilliant girl who is paralyzed on half of her body, and the other a carefree child. However, at the same time, I felt somewhat removed from what was going on in the Congo, and had a hard time piecing together the political events that affected them so dramatically. Over the course of the book, it becomes more important to understand the external events, so I found that I lost a connection with the characters. In the last third of the book, we follow the characters through adulthood, and I found I didn't really understand the different choices they made as well as I would have liked. Although I still enjoyed their story, I didn't feel, as I had in Kingsolver's other books, a real connection with the characters in a way that affected me personally. This book felt more distant.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: One of the worst books I ever read
Review: This book was horrible! I felt like I was being preached at the entire time. I was disappointed in all of the character's personalities because they were so dull and they never stood up for themselves. I was so put off by this book that I dreaded reading it, but I kept at it because everyone said it was good. I also had read other books by the author and loved those, but I found that this one did not measure up at all. I couldn't believe that someone would publish a book so incredibally awful

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Poisonwood Bible
Review: The thought of having to read a 550 page book for my required summer reading, along with a second choice, didn't leave me in a good mood. However, I have survived the Poisonwood Bible. Although, the first 100 pages or so were a bit boring, they were necessary to the development of the characters. If I hadn't been forced to read this book for school, I may have picked it up eventually because I tend to read Oprah Book Club books. The development of the 5 women is magnificent. I especially enjoyed Adah's point of view during the run from the ants. Her struggle to save her own life, after her own mother turns her back is something I'll always recall. I think many different people can find something to relate to in this book. It's a good read.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: make that 3 1/2 stars
Review: The opening was a lucious, fluid river of words that swept right through me: an emense relief after reading choppier, less descriptive works (e.i. jk rowling). The desription in this book is incredible and full of colorful comparisons that vividly illustrate the Congo. The first half of the book (written in 5 different points of view) recalls the arrival and settling in the congo of a Georgian missionary family, led by bible-thumping head-of the-family "Our Father" Nathan Price. Nathan's early attempts to "save" the villagers backfire on him (mothers refuse to have their children baptized in the river because of alligators) due to his extreme misunderstanding of the African culture: he sees the congolese as little children who must be punished for ignorance along with his own daughters. Meanwhile, his wife and four daughters go through famine, ants, fever, and flood to keep the house standing and feed the master. How long can they stand it? This question alone is enough to keep the reader up until 3 am flipping pages frantically. Then comes the fiery climax and tragic disaster....

...and after that, an even more tragic disaster in which the book becomes hopelessly longwinded, political, and pointless. Thirty years pass at about ten years for every four pages. The characters age, but on the whole don't change after the climax. Or change too much. Preteens become mothers with kids in college before you can bat an eye-(being a teen myself, I found this wholy unnerving and could no longer connect with the characters). the only thing that kept this book from recieving 5 stars instead of 3 1/2 was the fact that it didn't simply end after a certain character's death. One final unpolished gem: the final chapter. Though it desperately needed trimming back (just like the entire 2nd half of the book)it left me feeling breathless. This chapter (set in the omnipresent eyes of someone I was waiting to speak again) establishes the importance of animals in the story as symbolism of change. The okapi, the lion, the ants, the green mamba, the eyes in the trees.


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