Rating: 
Summary: The Downfall of a Nation from the Mouths of Babes
Review:
The Poisonwood Bible is poetic, wrapping the rocky history of Belgium's withdraw from the Congo in the bodies of four young girls. When Nathan Price, a fiery Baptist preacher, moves his family to a Congan missionary in search of his own redemption, the four daughters he has raised fearing the wrath of God, begin to fear their father as much as the unfamiliarity surrounding them.
Kingsolver's brilliant novel touches on several serious issues including the theme of salvation, strong throughout the novel. Her purpose seems to open the eyes of the audience to the injustice of Congo's independence. Kingsolver crafts her novel with a strong message delivered so softly, any audience will understand. Even the Belgian government, strongly the antagonist of the novel, could read Poisonwood without offence.
This historical fiction places the imaginary lives of a missionary family lost in the accurate history of the African Congo's fight for independence. Kingsolver's creativity is unmatched in her portrayal of the serious happenings of a tormented father and an entire nation from the mouths of four little girls. Kingsolver show the effects of Congo independence on the Congo's youngest citizens, letting their experience of destruction of their family, foreign country, and lives as they know them swept away in front of their eyes.
The reader walks away from Poisonwood with a bittersweet appreciation for strong religion and its effect upon the relationship between husband and wife. The book illustrates the dangers of having more power than one person, or one nation, can handle. The effect is humbling and eye opening.
Rating: 
Summary: Phenomenal Achievement
Review: Having read Pigs in Heaven and The Bean Trees, I expected more of the same from Poisonwood. I couldn't have been more wrong -- or happier. TPB is one of the best books I've read in the last several years. The book deals with the effects of the Congo and the political turmoil of the early 60's on a family of very unprepared missionaries. It doesn't stoop to easy moralizing or condemnation, but instead focuses on the people involved and how they change. Each of the daughters has a distinct personality that reacts to and affects that of their parents. The villagers they attempt to convert are three-dimensional, neither the ignorant savages the father expects nor the romanticized pacifists that some stories feature. I was skeptical that a writer whose previous books (at least the ones I'd read) had focused on women in Arizona and Appalachia could believably recreate the tumultuous Zaire of the 1960's. I was completely wrong. Having read King Leopold's Ghost before it and Genocide in the Congo after, it definitely rings true in its portrayal of central Africa trying to emerge from a brutal colonial period. When I later watched "Lumumba", it seemed as if the world she had described came alive... Read it, laugh, learn and cry! It will all be over far too soon...
Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: I am not drawn to books about Africa or religion, but this was recommended by a friend and turned out to be the best book I've read in years. It is so philosophical and well-woven that it effortlessly guides the reader through a number of years and changes while provoking one to consider some of life's biggest mysteries: What is God? What is His intent for mankind? What is sin? What is worth? And yet the storytelling is so spellbinding that you read every word to eek out the meaning(s).
This book changed my life.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book but...
Review: I do heartily recommend this book. I am un-phased by other reviewers calling this book anti-christian or anti-american. It may be both, but it is well written and is good critique of a lot of bad. I am American and Christian and can handle some criticism when it is thoughtful and well placed. I think this qualifies on both counts.
But I would say that Kingsolver becomes less interesting of a writer as she goes a long. The first 4 sections of her book are phenomenal and the charcters interesting. However the last section of her book feels rushed and the charcters feel like they've been flattened out. I liked this book because there was so much color in the charcters. It kept me reading. Towards the end, I kept reading just to finish. The life was gone.
But hey...this is my opinion and I can be a little critical. I think it's a good read...so hey go ahead.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't get into it.
Review: I had high hopes for this book, although it being an Oprah book has nothing to do with it. My friend recommended it to me with stellar reviews, so I jumped in, only to be bored, sleepy, and plain uninterested, After multiple attempts to be entertained, I gave up.
Simply: it's a bore.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful prose, book could have used some editing
Review: I loved this beautifully written book until soon after the part where the mother and daughters left the father. It should have ended then, because that was obviously the climax of the story. Instead, the book went on unnecessarily for another hundred or so pages with the characters' lives after that climactic event.
That said, I found this book to be Kingsolver's best by far. Her device of telling the story through the eyes of different characters was brilliant and made for multilayered portrayals of most of the major characters. Her prose, as I said above, is beautiful: deft, rich, and delicately wrought. Her understanding of the Congo made me feel I was there. Simply one of the best books I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: A work of art
Review: I read this book at a friend's recommendation after she saw how much I enjoyed Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees."
Nothing I write here can really do this book justice. It was enthralling. The Price family packs off to the Congo (it's set in the late 50s) for a year of mission work, let by a severe, pentecostal father. They bring Betty Crocker cake mix and unsensible clothes and have no earthly idea what their in for.
One of the things I enjoyed about the book is how it rotates viewpoints between the four Price daughters (with the occasional "Mother" chapter thrown in). Each daughter has a very different outlook; overall, this provides a very balanced story -- not too religious, not too secular. Interestingly, the story is never told from the father's point of view...
The book is quite long, but Kingsolver really weaves an amazing tale of life in Africa and how instead of bringing redemption to the "savages," the Congolese change the Prices' lives in ways you could never imagine. This is a book that sticks with you after you finish it.
I was a little surprised to see some of the bad reviews on this website: evidently some people tended to think that Kingsolver presented an unChristian or unAmerican viewpoint. Personally, I felt she was very realistic and did a remarkably poetic job of translating both the horror and the simplicity of living in the Congo during such a dark point in its history.
Definitely a five-star book!!
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I'm currentley reading "Poisonwood Bible" for my history class im only about 60 pages in and I already love it dearly. I love the way the story rotates between Nathan Price's 4 different and hilarious daughters I especially love Adah Price, Leah Price's twin. Adah is mentally retarted yet she knows and sees more than all and is indeed a hilarious character. I also love the relationship between their mother and father. She seems to be such a normal person who curses, makes mistakes and tries hard but he seems to live his life on a pedastal trying to be the most perfect person ever (far from it in my opinion) I recommend this book to everyone it's a great read.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Must-Read
Review: I'm wary of Oprah picks, or anything mass-hyped, but this one hit the mark. Kingsolver credibly takes her readers into an exotic, historical, complex geopolitically and religiously diverse environment.
This is a great avenue to expose yourself to just a tiny glimpse of recent western African political and geographic struggles for independence and industrialization, told through the varying viewpoints of a family of strong and extremely different women held captive by their father's blinding dedication to what he believes a religious imperative.
In a word: Intense.
This novel does implicate a criticism of SOME manifestations of Christianity, globalization, patriarchy, Western culture & politics, and religious zealotry in general. If putting these so-called institutions under a microscope makes you uncomfortable, then this book is probably not for you.
Unfortunately, I think the book kind of falls apart at the end, and would have been much more succintly concluded about 100 pages earlier than it was.
Rating:
Summary: AN ENGAGING SAGA OF HUBRIS, HISTORY & HOPE
Review: Kingsolver in my view is one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers. This feisty opus from her is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of recent times: Congo's fight for freedom from Belgium, the gruesome murder of its first prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the sordid progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Sound familiar? That engaging backdrop alone is reason enough for me to recommend this treat of a read. The narrator's first person voice is fascinating and indelibly colored by her own losses and unanswerable questions. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four sharply observant daughters, each of whom must strike her own separate path to salvation, a path paved with moral risk and personal responsibility. For its audacity in setting up a fascinating literary scaffolding (with the intertwined narratives) or for its politically charged backdrop, or for the sheer worldly wisdom packed within its many pages, The Poisonwood Bible offers twin pleasures of being a dark comedy of human failings as well as the breathtaking possibilities of human hope. I couldn't recommend this book highly enough.
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