Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: I walked into this novel thinking that it would be an utter waste of my time, since I had to read it for summer AP English work. Having finished it, I've realized that I was completly wrong. This book was amazing! So many words of praise come to mind when I think of this novel. It placed me in the center of a bitter-sweet experience that not only affects the lives of the characters but also that of the reader. The Poisonwood Bible was touching in every sense of the word and it was definitely worth the hours I put into reading it. Kingsolver's characters were believeable and extremely well-developed. The plot was unique and intriguing and I found it virtually impossible to put down. The beauty and majesty of this novel are hard for me to express, after having found myself drowning in such words and such a story. I am exceedingly pleased that Oprah has placed it on her Book Club list for June and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone. Enjoy this mesmerizingly wondeful experience!
Rating: 
Summary: Loved it for a while
Review: Was figuring on a probable five-star rating here til the last third or so of the novel, which I found incredibly disappointing. Everything I was loving about it--the people of the village, the snakes, the ants--all things wonderfully "congo-ish"-- abruptly ended after the adorable little girl (whom I also loved) died. It was all down hill from there. How the surviving members of the Price family go on with their lives after their time in the Congo, each in extremely different ways, is interesting stuff, but not as fascinating as living and struggling in the Congo. Added to that, I think the storytelling itself became quite poor. I felt myself becoming more and more distanced from the characters as I got closer and closer to the end. By the end, I didn't really care about them at all. But I loved the first half!
Rating:
Summary: not to be missed
Review: I read (and think I reviewed this when it first came out in hardcover). I loved it and the consensus among everyone else I know who has read it has been unanimous. Fascinating characters, nonstop action, great historical setting. Well worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: My Christian book club read this book, and we were facinated with the range of characters. The father was burning to preach to the "heathens" as he thought they were, and the Mom was just a wonderful-style 50's Mom, who just wanted her four girls to have a birthday cake in deepest Africa! Each girl has a distinct voice, from the oldest, self-admiring daughter, to the disabled daughter and her twin, to the baby of the family. I raged at the prejudice of "ugly Americans" from that time period, and prayed that there would not be such prejudice today. I thought the ending was weak, but I enjoyed seeing what happened to the family in later years, after much revolution in both their lives and their adopted country.
Rating: 
Summary: Unabated tedium
Review: Lord, every cliche on earth is in this one. Ms. Kingsolver has grown too comfortable with her success. Blah, blah, blah; it just goes on forever about the mean ol' white Christian father, the morally superior female/black/downtrodden. Yes, we got the point! Now, Ms. K., please say something substantial about the African continent. This was a great topic that could have been done better. The obsequious nod to jailed murderer Mumia in her introduction should have tipped me off that I was in for some indoctrination.I have enjoyed some (not all) of Ms. K's past works. She does know how to do social preaching without dropping an anvil on her reader's head. But this book tried to appeal to the 17-year-old in us, horsewhipping the obvious until I fell asleep. Does she think her readers have gotten stupid? The only thing I really enjoyed was Rachel's sophomoric sarcasm, and even that got cloying after her third appearance. Put away the trite social commentary, Ms. K. You've been in the sun too long. This one's a stinker.
Rating:
Summary: REALLY not my favorite book
Review: Reading this book, I cannot understand how so many people could have recommended it to me--I even BOUGHT this one b/c everybody told me it was so good...well, I barely dragged myself through it. I felt absolutely no attachment to any of the characters (maybe I was slightly interested in Adah, but even that was minimal) and found them to be flat and bland at best. Moreover, having grown up in Africa (Zaire, in fact, along with parts of West Africa), I found that Kingsolver completely failed to capture the soul of Africa and what it feels like to grow up there. As a deep, meaningful novel, I think it missed the boat; if her point was to do a political analysis, then she should have spared us the Prices....
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Characterization
Review: I've just spent my vacation reading this book. The characters are each given a voice in each chapter. I loved the changing perspectives of the situations which each chapter brought.My only problem with the book was the ending. I felt that the author might have ended the book sooner; the book seemed to carry on forever in the very end. I felt that there was also too much space devoted to politics. All in all, however, this book is on the scale of The Thorn Birds, one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply affecting novel about life
Review: I found this book to be deeply moving as well as informative. Although much of the criticism has centered on the author's "preaching" regarding the political climate in Africa, I found it to be an important and interesting piece of fiction. I loved the way each of the women "spoke" in her own voice in each chapter, and found that this book has stayed with me long after I have finished reading it. An excellent and interesting read. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Priceless
Review: This is book starts out slow, there is no real plot, it took me about 50-100 pages to get into it. In today's zipzipzip, remote control world that can be the death of a book- I am so glad then that I persevered. I persevered because of the beautiful writing. Now that I have finished the book I have to say that it is already one of my favorites. I loved it for its writing and for the 'truths' it told me in so far that it makes one think. About words- upside down and inside out- and from words about cultures and countries, kingdoms and people that are all made up of words. There are parts and sentences that made my heart stop with dread and awe: "that the young will die before the old" and the whole chapter of the hunt where Leah experiences her first kill, and Anatole's scars- how the girls shrink away at first, come to see it as 'nothing more than his face', and Leah, back in America, can see others recoiling the way she had, once. The end is beautiful- the simplicity with which the theme of the book is spelled out- things, people, places come and go, but life, life goes on, and all that has gone behind has touched the world- shaped it in a way. Read this book. Bear with it. It will blossom and fruit beyond your expectations. As far as the history is concerned- I enjoyed all the parts. It wasn't propaganda- anyone old enough to read this book, to read at all, should be old enough to know what is and isn't, what opinions they want to share and learn from, or leave.
Rating:
Summary: All the preaching nearly spoiled the writing
Review: There were two preachers in this book, the fictional missionary one and the author. The first part of the book was great, beautifully written and a fascinating account of life in the Congo. However, Kingsolver's agenda eventually murdered the story, turning the characters into cartoons and relentlessly hammering the reader with her message. She should have ended the novel sooner, then gotten her social justice sermon off her chest with an essay.
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