Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!
Review: This book was everything you could ask for in a great epic! There are a million reasons why I loved this book but above all, I loved the way Kingsolver used language. She clearly has written a novel that takes you by the hand and leads you to places you never thought you'd be. The characters are unique but at the same time I felt like I knew people just like these fictional characters which is a sign of a well written novel. This is a MUST READ for anyone who appreciates masterful writing and an adventure. I learned things from reading this book and have a new understanding of the Congo because of that. 5 Stars!
Rating: 
Summary: Let down
Review: After hearty recommendations, I found this book to be bogged down with personal agenda. There were interesting moments, compelling words ... but the author's apparent disdain for things American (including white men, capitalism and Christians), kept peeking through the story, distracting me. I'm discouraged that so many reviewers take her "facts" as truth. After Ruth May's death, the book took on a feeling of socialist propaganda. I totally lost interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Didactic and Long
Review: If Barbara Kingslover set out to educate Americans about the history and politics of the Congo then I would say she had limited success. (Although most Americans know very little of the history and politics of the Congo, so any information would be considered an education.) If she set out to write a literary novel I would say she failed miserably. This book was didactic, overwritten, and way too long. Most of the characters were flat, and all were unsympathetic. Two of the characters (Orleana the mother and Leah one of the daughters) were really only used as mouthpieces for Kingslover's political views about the Congo, nee Zaire. Because this book is overwritten few people will be interested enough to stick with it (several other friends of mine have said they started it but gave up) long enough to even learn much about the Congo, so in some respects I think that she may have even failed in educating her audience. This book was theme driven; and there were plenty of them--religion, politics, family, but the main theme was oppression. Oppression of the family by the misguided religious zealot father; oppression of the people in the Congo by rich and powerful countries like America; all good and worthy themes. However, Kingslover could not resist beating us over the head with these themes, and spelling every single thing out for us over and over again. I think her need for justice in the Congo got the best of her writing style--she wanted to make damn sure there was no misunderstanding on what she thought had gone wrong in the Congo and who's fault it was. She used no literary allusion (other than the bible-and even that she pretty much spelled out for us), and no symbolism other than the one pet parrot they owned but the father kicked out of the house and it eventually died because it couldn't live in the wild anymore. Everything else she told us straight up, so there was no room for misinterpretation is my guess. But part of good literature is letting the reader figure out the the themes and symbolism themselves. I would NOT recommend this book, but think it does have some potential to be made into a big Hollywood movie. Hollywood loves this kind of pseudo literary, "political message" movie. I'm sure they could condense this tome down to 90 minutes of celluloid and it might actually pique some interest in an audience.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read in a while!
Review: This is a riveting, intellectual book that reaches out on several levels. It was impossible to put down!
Rating:
Summary: A stunning and powerful story.
Review: I didn't want to read this book. And even after I began reading it, it did not pull me in for several chapters. But after the first time around, through each of the voices, the characters came clearly into focus, and I was lost. Even now, days after finishing the book, I remain in the spell it cast. Kingsolver presents this experience of an uprooted middle-American family desperately trying to adapt to life in the Congo from 5 different points of view - a mother, and each of her 4 very different daughters. Similarly to Pears' technique in An Instance of the Fingerpost, Kingsolver tells a part of the story from each different viewpoint. Like Pears, each of her narrators has a strong, clear, very real personality. But Kingsolver outdoes Pears in that each of her narrators has a characteristic voice all her own. Orleanna is a desperate and naive young mother, striving to keep her children well. Rachel is the self-centered beauty queen, Leah is an earnest, brilliant tomboy, Adah is Leah's crippled, bitter, perhaps more brilliant twin, and then there is little Ruth May, bossy and competitive. Each one's different perspective meshes with the others' to create a complete and engrossing picture of the whole. In the unfolding of the drama, there is a wealth of sensory detail, and plenty of humor to offset plenty of tragedy. The incongruous differences in social outlook, and the endless language difficulties make for lots of laughs, as well as some of the biggest tragedies. Someone should slap Alix Wilber for calling Kingsolver's presentation of her philosophical and political viewpoint a "weakness". The message in this book is actually a social one, and isn't that one of the responsibilities of art? And whose viewpoint should she write from, if not her own? But the political message is anything but strident; the message and the story are entirely intertwined, each enhancing the other.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: This is a masterpiece. Written with verve and yet cynicism this is a great book. It teaches much about Africa, missionary life, and the dilemma of Chritianization of Third World people in light of the colonial experience. This is also a book about dysfuntional families, tragedies, and triumphs. Some of the passages were so power and overwhelming that I had to put the book down. It has been months since I read the book, but I still think about some of those passages. A rare achievement
Rating:
Summary: failed experiment in style ultimately empty
Review: Kingsolver seems to have spent so much time attempting to force a narrative through the "distinct" subjective voices of the Price daughers that she winds up with a hollow and didactic story right out of african history 101 surrounded by frequently well-etched but fleshless character studies, rather than people. She leaves her readers without sufficient info to know what drives significant characters, such as Nathan, the prime mover of the novel's story who she's content to depict as a ranting pig-headed bullying wife-beating religion-ignorant bible thumper so familiar from every cliche of '60s southern white racism ever depicted. Even Orleanna, who is made an incoherent mouthpiece of the novel's so-called central message of colonialism, with woman/africa as the jointly colonized victim, merely seems to exist for this purpose. The daughters' voices are unconvincing as attempts to represent different psychological stages girlhood and are usually annoying reminders of the author's artifice. Overall, although there are some well-crafted and memorable scenes or turns of phrase, the book is a trudge to read, doesn't bring any insights into Zaire's stuggle for independence vis a via that of women, and is ultimately a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but not great literature
Review: The author seems to be entranced with her own voice. The book could have been much shorter with the assistance of a good editor. I hope that readers understand this is not the typical experience of missionaries in the field, but is exaggerated to suit the author's own agenda. Although the mother and daughters were distinctive in their characterization, I did not find them memorable or even particularly endearing. Rachel's cutesy malaprops became annoying after the first two or three, and Adah's miraculous regeneration seemed contrived. If this book is intended to be an indictment of the work of Christian missionaries, it has probably succeeded very well; but the reader should remember that it is still just a story of a howling mad father who brought his entire family to a place of almost certain death. One wonders why they stayed so long in the face of all the dangers and starvation? Why didn't they just get back on the plane and go home to Georgia? It is difficult to sympathize with fools. The political background is simply that--background for the story of the women, who are led by circumstance with the result that heroism eludes them. In all fairness, this book lacks the flaws in credibility that Kingsolver displays in previous books. But it still needed liposuction to get rid of the fat.
Rating:
Summary: tremendous
Review: Besides being a wonderfully absorbing story (tho it took about 50 pages to grab me)..this is one of those books that changed me a little...made me look at myself from a different angle..and peaked a formerly nonexistant fascination with African history. Kingsolver's characters are rich with beauty and ugliness and familiarity. This book is a new experience..a story to be read slowly and absorbed, tasted. There's unbelievably dysfunctional family relationships, the gentlest of love, breathtaking danger and hardship in everyday life, fascinating insite into a remote culture, conflicts in religion, atrocities by the leaders.. all set in the Congo..and you are there seeing it and feeling it in a way never before possible. This is a delicious book. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: captivating
Review: This book felt like a living, breathing representation of life as a missionary in the Congo. I enjoyed how the story was told through all the daughters eyes, not just from one perspective. It made the story richer and more intricately woven, showing how an event in a families life can be translated differently by each individual. A must read.
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