Tara Road

Rating:
Summary: just a comment
Review: I haven't finished Tara Road, but am enjoying it very much. I just wanted to respond to the comment of two previous reviewers about Ms. Binchy's Irish phrases. One reviewer commented that no on in America uses phrases such as "I'm off to the store", and didn't these phrases get edited. Writing such as this is what attracts me to Maeve Binchy's books, as well as to Rosamund Pilcher's. I spent some time in Scotland and England, and that English/Scotish/Irish flavor is very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to seeing how Tara Road ends.

Rating:
Summary: An insightful, well told story of love, loss & friendship!
Review: This was the first book I have ever read by Maeve Binchy. I wish I had known sooner what a great story teller she is! The center of the story: Ria and Marilyn, both dealing with tremendous loss. They are surrounded with characters you either love or dislike (won't say hate, because they all have a certain chink in their armor that you can sympathize with). Through the story they triumph over their losses and a friendship blossoms between the two. This story is full of sensitivity and it is so well written you can see these people in your mind and feel their raw emotions. Goodness! Now I'll have to read more of this great writer's books! What a great introduction (for me) to a great story teller!

Rating:
Summary: Tara Road - I'll Stay Home
Review: While novels may require you to suspend belief, this one goes way too far. The characters were totally unbelievable. There are too many "stories within the story" and no time is spent to really "flesh-out" any of the characters.

Rating:
Summary: Easy Read
Review: I could not stop reading this book. The reactions of the characters were very real to life. I was able to identify with the characters. Such as the reactions of Ria, Brian and Annie to what Danny was doing. The book was realistic in many ways. This book left me thinking long after I put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: Mediocre, Mediocre and again Mediocre. You spend the entire book waiting for a plot to develop. Reading the book is equivilant to vegging out to a mindless sitcom on tv.

Rating:
Summary: A LOVELY BOOK FROM A GREAT WRITER
Review: TARA ROAD it's a book about love, yes. "So what's new with that - you might ask - if love is a subject explored by thousands of writers since Eve was still virgin?" The difference, I answer, is that you're about to read a book by Maeve Binchy, and she knows how to do it under her own way. That's the difference.

This book it's not like all the others. It has an adorable plot that will enchant you upside down, characters that have the power to make you laugh and cry with the same ease, and it's told by a master storyteller. This said, I can't tell nothing else about Maeve's books. Read the book. You'll know why it was so acclaimed by the public in general, doesn't matter if they are in the USA or living under the ground.

Marco Aurelio - contact: [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Is there a vacancy on Tara Road?
Review: What a wonderful cast of characters. I have to admit, I wasn't much of a Binchy fan, but this book has changed my mind. The characters have conflicts that they overcome and leave you with hope for your own conflicts. I love old houses and fell in love with the house in Tara Road.

Rating:
Summary: Fun Characters, but too long!
Review: Tara Road was an insightful narration of how life can change quickly (especially if you are an at-home mom). Ria, the main character and at-home mom, was warm friendly. She is the type of friend and/or neighbor all of us would like to have--non-judgemental.

Maeve Binchy described the everyday life of these everyday people. They became acquaintances while I read the book. However, like people you meet briefly, this book can be easily forgotten. I think if the book was shorter (not 500 pages), I would have given this book a higher rating. It was too long to spend learning all the details of the many characters' lives.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Sorry to you all, but I didn't like the book. I am very disappointed, I thought the story would be so great, but I couldn't finish the book. I didn't like how its written, and the way events are presented.

It is a very slow-reading book! I kept yawning through out all the pages that I read.

I don't recommend it at all.

Rating:
Summary: Traditional Binchy style in a contemporary setting
Review: Unlike other Binchy novels, this book is set in the 1980s and 1990s: Binchy herself comments that she was beginning to feel that her fifties and sixties settings were getting too dated. She makes a very good job of the transition: there is a real contemporary feel to this book. I grew up in Dublin in the period in question: I know!

The characters, like other Binchy novels, are very well developed. Binchy has a real sense of 'friendship' as well as love and life after the supposedly happy-ever-after of the wedding. Ria's marriage to Danny, their purchase of the dream house and their life together is brilliantly portrayed.

Then Danny announces he's leaving Ria, and her life falls apart....

This introduces the house-swap part of the plot, and this is the real novelty for Binchy. Ria changes places with Marilyn for the summer, which leads to both women coming to a greater understanding of herself, and of the factors which led the other's life to fall apart. Some of these passages are excellent.

I notice some reviewers here complain when Binchy fails to get US dialogue correct; fair enough. I wonder why some of these same reviewers think it's not important when US writers make similar mistakes - and sometimes much worse ones - with British or Irish vocabulary? But this is an aside.

I did feel that there was an unfinished feel to the book. Although Binchy by no means always goes for the happy ending typical of so many lightweight romances, she does at least tend to tie up her loose ends. This, for me, is why the book gets four stars instead of five: I needed another fifty pages or so to finish off the story properly.

I'm now looking forward to Binchy's next book, which, sadly, she's already announced will be her last.