Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful short stories
Review: My wife, a huge Maeve Binchy fan, recommended that I check out this book. I could not be more pleased.While each of the stories stood on their own merit and were quite engaging, I very much enjoyed the way they intertwined. And it is amazing the way in which Binchy can flesh out her characters in only ten or fifteen pages. (Oh, Nancy Morris, God help you...) Last month, I read my first Richard Russo novel. This month, Maeve Binchy. I have some good reading ahead of me.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not one of Binchey's best!
Review: The characters are interesting and real. However, just as you really get to know each one and how their lives intertwine, you're left hanging in the end. I felt like I was taken to the edge of a cliff and then left there dangling!!!! The extra stories at the the end were disjointed and totally useless!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: If You're A Binchy Fan...
Review: This book full of short stories delves into the personal lives of 8 passengers on a bus that goes from Dublin to a small town on the weekends. Each story is dedicated to a different person, and takes an in depth look in the characters' minds and how they view the others they travel with. I really enjoy Binchy's style of how each story ovelaps with the next, and how each character interacts with the other passengers who also come home for the weekend. The way that Binchy develops characters, it's almost like snooping in their private diaries. This book also contains 4 short stories originally published in London as Dublin 4. Each one tells a surprising story of how everyday people cope in society. A wife who has discovered her husband is having an affair, a first apartment for a young country girl, an unexpected pregnancy, and a wife dealing with her alcoholic husband fresh-out of rehab. This collection is a treasure of true Binchy and is a must have of anyone that is a fan of her work.
Rating:
Summary: If You're A Binchy Fan...
Review: This book full of short stories delves into the personal lives of 8 passengers on a bus that goes from Dublin to a small town on the weekends. Each story is dedicated to a different person, and takes an in depth look in the characters' minds and how they view the others they travel with. I really enjoy Binchy's style of how each story ovelaps with the next, and how each character interacts with the other passengers who also come home for the weekend. The way that Binchy develops characters, it's almost like snooping in their private diaries. This book also contains 4 short stories originally published in London as Dublin 4. Each one tells a surprising story of how everyday people cope in society. A wife who has discovered her husband is having an affair, a first apartment for a young country girl, an unexpected pregnancy, and a wife dealing with her alcoholic husband fresh-out of rehab. This collection is a treasure of true Binchy and is a must have of anyone that is a fan of her work.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant but unfinished
Review: This is a loosely connected collection of character sketches with no real plot. The first chapter about Nancy was intriguing so I read on, but no real story develops. Pleasant but inconsequential fluff.
Rating:
Summary: Short stories
Review: This is a small collection of short stories featuring 8 people who travel from Dublin to a small village, each weekend.While they are minimally connected through village life, their lives are very different, some with huge family problems and others who are desperate to keep their Dublin lives separate. All of the stoeies are well presented but are just sketches of what couls be bigger, ongoing stories. I felt as though I was reading a plotting session..one which didn't come to anything. I guess that I'm old-fashioned enough to want a beginning, a middle and an end, and in this book, nothing is resolved, leaving the reader dangling mid story.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: This is the first Binchy book that I have read. I was very disappointed and unable to finish it. Expecting a story I got instead a bunch of character sketches, the only connection being their journey on the Lilac bus. Moreover each time a character became somewhat interesting her/his story would end. It seems as if the author was apprenticing her writing skills and this book came under 'how to write effective characters'. I do not recommend it. I might give Binchy another try, but it won't be too soon.
Rating:
Summary: Dreadful! Disappointment to any Binchy fan
Review: This miserable collection of characters, with their melodramatic situations, has none of the charm of Maeve's memorable characters in other novels. About the only redeeming quality it has is that it makes one feels one's own life is delightful by comparison
Rating: 
Summary: What happened?!?
Review: This was my first experience with Maeve Binchy, and was almost my last. I was so angry when I finished the book! Ms. Binchy develops several characters separately (and very nicely) in different chapters and then leaves the reader hanging as to what the purpose of the book was. If you must, read the book as if it were a collection short stories and skip the useless last chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Great stories ... but
Review: Where is the conclusion? When I got the the four short stories of Dublin short stories, I was like, ok, I'll get back to the Lilac Bus ~~ and never did. It just left me hanging. Maeve Binchy is a great writer ~~ she tells stories like no other writer does but this book did not do her justice at all. The stories in the Lilac Bus seems to be incomplete. There were no conclusion at all. Maybe she intends to leave the endings up to our imaginations ~~ but she barely even started a sketch with some of these characters. And I want to know more. It feels like a tease ~~ come on and read my book but, ... you have to do the rest on your own. This is not my favorite Binchy book ~~ not even close. Since I have read her other books, I know that this is not her typical writing. Don't be discouraged if you read this book ~~ she does have other books that are better. 11-25-03
| 
