Rating: 
Summary: A great blend of fiction and histoical fact
Review: I greatly enjoyed this book. I couldn't put it down. Kingsolver does a great job of tying you into the book in the first 30 pages that you have no choice but to continue. All of the characters are so real, and the style of the book (being told by the 5 women from their points of view) is excellent. I strongly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Too long to end
Review: I enjoyed the book up to the point of leaving Africa. Once they had left the husband/father it seemed as if the book would never end. The story from the view of the daughters was good and even handed, however we are left would a few gaps: i.e. Did he actually die in Africa or is he still alive today in Africa?
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written, well-researched, occasionally superficial
Review: Kingsolver has done a marvelous job of researching her choice of setting. The jungle of Africa comes marvelously alive for the reader, and while I have no personal experience by which to compare her descriptions, still the landscape and its people are painted vividly and memorably. The author also does very well distinguishing four first-person narratives, which in itself is a daunting task. While the plot does seem to crumble (and drag on endlessly) in the last hundred pages or so, the momentum from the first two-thirds managed to propel me through to the end. I was most disappointed to find her treatment of religion and missionary work in general, to be surprisingly superficial. There are few (perhaps no) redeeming qualities in the characater of the father. His superficial (indeed, often cartoonish) characterization did detract slightly from my overall enjoyment of the book. On the whole, however, its an engaging read.
Rating:
Summary: Barbara - What happened?
Review: I am a fan of Kingsolver. However, my mother raved over this book and I was very disappointed. I liked the general topic of the book but the constant character switching was very confusing. The eldest daughter was the only one who was a fully developed character. The last 200 pages were a CHORE to finish. My librarian said that she never could finish the darn book.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, a must-read. I couldn't put it down!
Review: Wow! What an amazing book. The charcaters are absorbing, the attention to detail is fabulous. This is one of those rare books where even weeks after finishing it, I find myself thinking, "I wonder what so-and-so is up to now?" I miss these characters! (OK, I don't miss Our Father, but I miss the rest of them.) If only there was a sequel...
Rating:
Summary: Little Women meets Mosquito Coast
Review: When I first started reading this book I couldn't put it down. I found this chronicle of evreyday life of four American girls growing up in the Congo very engrossing. The way Kingsolver was able to so effectively write in five different voices was amazing. The characters were all so distinctive that there really wasn't a need for all the chapters to be labeled with the name of the girl writing it. The chapters by quiet brooding Ada I devouered yet savoured as I read through her palindromes backwards and forwards. Rachel's chapters were the most amusing with her twisted sense of reality and her missused words and phrases. I found myself most frustrated when reading about Leah, the leader who so desperately wanted to follow. It was Ruth May's chapters that made me smile the most as I read about a stubborn, bossy little girl that never came to realize that she was the glue. It was after the Price girls left the Congo that the story lost some of it's magic for me. Part of the reason I was so involved in the first half of the story was that it was so detailed, no event was brought up as an afterthought - it was like a play-by-play. The second half seemed more rushed. I was forced to take a more passive role as a reader as I no longer felt a part of the story. And dear Ada, my favorite sister who reemerged as Adah, seemed placed on the back burner. I was able to forgive this when I read the last line in Adah's last chapter, the definitive line, "I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible."
Rating:
Summary: If ONLY there were more hours in a day . . .
Review: You know you are reading a good book when you stay up way too late at night, you take the book with you to the gym, to the cafe, and even to the bathroom because YOU JUST CAN'T PUT IT DOWN. I must be honest and say that I am only half way through this book but so far, it is just wonderful. Her characters are well developed, tragic and funny, emotionally deep and remarkably flippant - just like real people in real life. I first found myself astonished and then angry at the father's arrogance and insularity but now, as I progress through the story, I find myself pitying him most of all, his loneliness and pride, and his complete lack of comprehension of how he should approach his role as a white, foreign missionary. Go get this book as soon as you can and read it - it is a wonderful study on human personalities, quirks, strengths and weaknesses and how all of them collide within the family (not to mention a great introductory education about the Congo and 20th century Euro-American policy and attitudes toward African countries).
Rating:
Summary: Enriching Novel with Serious Flaws
Review: As others have said, this is really a book of two parts. The first half details the family's struggle as Congo missionaries. This is an engrossing and tragic story of an enormous clash of Western and African cultures told in multiple voices. I could not put the book down as I felt the useless pain being inflicted on so many people. While the literary devices Kingslover uses to separate the daughters' voices do get a little irritating at times, the perspectives are genuinely separate and add much richness to the story. The second half of the novel, which follows the three surviving daughters for the next 30 years, is more problematic. While the account of Anton and Leah's interracial and cultural marriage is deeply moving, Leah does not seem to care that she is sacrificing her children's health to her and her husband's obsession with Africa--just as her father did to her. In addition, while I am generally on Africa's side, Leah's views change from refreshing to outrageous as the novel progresses. For example, Leah judges those Africans who enslaved others by local 15th century morals while she judges the western enslavers by modern standards. Also, in Leah's numerous speeches, the U.S. takes 100% of the blame hits for the Cold War meddling that tragically hurt Africa; even with my very limited knowledge of African history, I know that the USSR killed plenty of Africans and had a horrible effect on many African economies. Since Kingslover has Leah, a very sympathetic character, utter some extreme distortions without any challenge, I have to strongly doubt other historical and cultural facts she presents--rightly so according to some critics. Rachel, who a better novelist could have used to provide some thought provoking challenges to Leah's views, becomes an irritating mouthpiece for white supremacy and lacks any redeeming qualities. By the end of the novel, I had had more than enough of both Leah and Rachael! Since Kingslover has no realistic vision for positive change in Africa (Adah's thoughts about going back to subsistence agriculture are ridiculous given the huge population Africa now has to support), the second half of the novel basically is a highly biased political tract that has only one redeeming factor--the moving intercultural family story.
Rating:
Summary: What's all the 'Hoopla' about?
Review: I heard such great reviews concerning this book that I was rather disappointed when I finally got through it. I found it to be slow moving, dry and too long. The book really did not leave me with anything.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: This is a must read for all that are interested in great works of literature.
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