Rating: 
Summary: A gem of a story
Review: Ann Patchett's ability to inhabit her characters' minds is stunning...In The Patron Saint of Liars, she is (in order) the wife, the husband, and the child, each of the book's three sections building upon the others, moving the story along chronologically while adding layers to each of the three main characters. All of this technical bravura, however, appears to exist solely to allow Ms. Patchett to tell us her stories. And, The Patron Saint of Liars is a wonderful, intricate story, of Rose, who refuses to believe that she is worthy of happiness and keeps running to evade the truth, Son, the man who accepts her and her child with open-hearted love, and Cecilia, the daughter she is afraid to love. Among the host of supporting characters, each fully sketched and colorful, Sister Evangeline stands out most clearly, an elderly nun who has little cooking ability and unusual powers of prophecy even though she sometimes appears unaware of what is happening before her eyes. As the book draws to a close, Patchett allows the reader to feel a bit smug in understanding what is happening to Sister Evangeline, even though the good Sister seems unaware of it herself. Throughout the book, Patchett gives the reader full warning what will happen eventually, but it makes no difference...
Rating: 
Summary: So-so
Review: As a huge fan of Patchett's later books, I wanted to like this one just as much. But maybe I set my expectations too high.While this book has many glimpses of insight and lovely writing, it ultimately is a letdown. I found that changing the story's point of view diluted the impact of all of the characters. And Rose remained an enigma until the very end. It never realistically told us WHY Rose had to run away. Enjoyable on a certain level, but nowhere near the transcendence of Magician's Assistant and Bel Canto.
Rating: 
Summary: "Everything else in the world gets modern...
Review: But babies just stay the same." So says Sister Evangeline, a nun who has worked for most of her life at St. Elizabeth's, a Catholic home for unwed mothers. Sister Evangeline usually doesn't get to see the babies - the mothers are taken to Owensboro and they are then given up to adoption. But one day, one mother who comes to St. Elizabeth's breaks all the rules. This woman is Rose, a married woman who drove from California to birth her baby and then give her up, because she knew she couldn't be the mother it needed. But when the time comes, she chooses to follow another path, and keeps her child and stays on at the home. Patchett's books is divided into three chronological stories of Rose's life at St. Elizabeth's - told by Rose, her second husband Son, and her daughter Cecilia. Throughout the book, the language is lyrical, helping to set the scenes where the plot is carried out. In the end, perhaps none of the characters are truly sympathetic. But they are all memorable, and ultimately we perhaps come to realize that no one with a story to tell is completely sympathetic. Overall, I found this book to be a lovely read.
Rating:
Summary: "Everything else in the world gets modern...
Review: But babies just stay the same." So says Sister Evangeline, a nun who has worked for most of her life at St. Elizabeth's, a Catholic home for unwed mothers. Sister Evangeline usually doesn't get to see the babies - the mothers are taken to Owensboro and they are then given up to adoption. But one day, one mother who comes to St. Elizabeth's breaks all the rules. This woman is Rose, a married woman who drove from California to birth her baby and then give her up, because she knew she couldn't be the mother it needed. But when the time comes, she chooses to follow another path, and keeps her child and stays on at the home. Patchett's books is divided into three chronological stories of Rose's life at St. Elizabeth's - told by Rose, her second husband Son, and her daughter Cecilia. Throughout the book, the language is lyrical, helping to set the scenes where the plot is carried out. In the end, perhaps none of the characters are truly sympathetic. But they are all memorable, and ultimately we perhaps come to realize that no one with a story to tell is completely sympathetic. Overall, I found this book to be a lovely read.
Rating:
Summary: An Almost Wonderful Book
Review: First, Patchett can write very well--she carries you right along on a beautiful stream of words--so she is a joy to read no matter what else you might say about her. What I would say however is that while this is a really good book, she gets better in later books. It is probably not fair to judge this book by what she accomplishes later--but ah, we are human - and so we do unfair things. Just like Patchett's characters. I like her characters...not personally but as literary devices. They are complex. They are not presented in neat little packages so that we, the readers, are given a complete overview of who they are and why they do what they do. They are often contradictory and we have to keep asking why are they doing this -or that. I think we look for characters that are easy to understand because we are so desperate to try and make sense out of the world-and we are hoping that literature will help us do that. But I think good literature helps us see how complicated it really is and that there are no simple answers about why people do what they do. So Patchett gives us characters that make us crazy based on the decisions they are making-but who are good people, regardless of their decisions. We realize in the process that people do not have to do specific things to be good people-and that we don't really know -and don't have to know why a person makes the decisions they do- you can still care about them. Why, for instance, would a married woman, with a husband who adores her abandon him and go to a home for unwed mothers. Why would a woman who adores her mother decide to never communicate with her mother again? You read along saying to yourself-no! Don't do that. But she does it and, she is still a good person-a deeply good person-with a scar that is never explained to us but that drives her and diverts her-and we don't have to know and we have no right to judge. I guess my very favorite thing about Patchett is not that her characters are complex, contradictory and allusive but it is in the relationships Patchett builds between her characters--they are not relationships we recognize. Love between men and women may or may not be romantic. The love of a mother for a child does not have to fit into a cookie-cutter--all good or all bad. Loyalty maybe demonstrated by non-action as well as action. We may choose to move on-or stay-in any relationship or place but it won't change who we are. I think Patchett is masterful--here and in her other books--at creating these 'non-standard' relationships--and in the process broadening our thinking about what it means to be human. And while I like her later books better than this one--and I imagine it isn't fair to judge this book by her later work--I am still doing it...so this one gets four stars -- primarily because her others deserve five.
Rating: 
Summary: endearing characters need not apply
Review: I couldn't figure out why she waited until she was pregnant to walk away - then couldn't figure out why she married Son - then after marrying so she could keep her baby, she deserts her daughter (in more ways than one). There just were no characters that I particularly liked in this book, except maybe the aged nun who just kept doing her thing. I never felt any emotion and none of the characters seemed to either. It was no more than a story of a woman whose life continues to go wrong and never gets any better.
Rating:
Summary: Evocative
Review: I didn't want this book to end - I wanted to keep reading the inner monologues of Rose and Cecilia and Son. What better compliment or recomendation is there about a story? What captured me was the vulnerability and honesty, the unflinching self-evaluation of the characters. I loved the relationships, the language, the almost tangible landscape. Some moments between Rose and Cecilia, Son and Cecilia - were so rich and so raw - I had to look away from the page for a moment. That's writing worth reading - and sharing!
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but eventually disappointing.
Review: I enjoyed all of the characters, Son, Rose, Sister Evangeline, etc. I loved the way the plot was moving and how the characters were developing, as well as how the author used the different view points of each character to tell the story as it moved along, so as to keep the story fresh. When I got to the ending, however, I was incredibly disappointed. So much so that the book was ruined for me. The fact that Rose could have left St. Elizabeth's where she seemed to be happy, and Son and Cecilia didn't even try to go after her just didn't seem realistic to me. I also just lost all respect for Rose because she could have done that. I had hoped that she would have matured enough to finally be able to realize and value people's feelings, but apparently not.
Rating:
Summary: Complex yet ultimately disappointing
Review: I have read other reviews of this book and feel as if I must have missed something along the way. I do think the book was written well and it had some high points but all in all I found the story to be disappointing. I realize that human beings are not categorically the same and we have to allow for behavior we don't always comprehend but I felt like Rose's character was just not developed enough. I kept wanting to know what was driving her to behave as she did. She leaves one loveless relationship where her mother was present in her life to enter another loveless relationship where she was cut off from her mother whom she loved deeply. There didn't seem to be any kind of explanation for such bizarre behavior which makes the book somewhat unsatisfying to me. Perhaps there are those who find this thought provoking and stimuating but I would need a little more character development to get to that point. I must admit that Rose left me feeling very annoyed and frustrated, so if that is the mark of a well-written book, then I guess it was so. I just thought the story had so much more to offer if the author had opened up more and allowed other things to flow. All in all, I found the book left me empty and alone with Rose.
Rating:
Summary: Good Title -
Review: I have to admit, I was intrigued by the title - "The Partron Saint of Liars." Ms. Patchett wrote a descriptive and interesting book - but I found myself wanting more. The title character, Cecelia, is just a coward. She can't face her life, yet short of running away after she discovers she is pregnant (By her husband, no less) never does anything. I saw nothing in her character that was even interesting let alone having two men love and Sister Evangeline love her. Son is your basic "salt of the earth" kind of guy - but again, I could never understand his adoration of Cecelia. He obviously adores Cecelia's daugher whom he raises as his own. Ms. Patchet allows a sympathetic view of Son. My favorite charachter was Sister Evangeline. There is a scene where Cecelia and Sister Evangaline are talking in the kitchen and Cecelia asks if Sister if she misses her mother. Sister Evangeline cries as she answers "Every day." I wanted to cry, too when I read that. Cecelia has no feeling for anything or anyone, thus making it hard to care where this book was going.
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