Rating: 
Summary: an ode to mediocrity
Review: okay, enough of the five star reviews from people who never learned to read. this book fails in all respects. if you find a copy of this book just laying around,take it and burn it immediately for the sake of humanity.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply amazing..
Review: This book kept me on edge till I finished it. A real page-turner. Being lost on a lifeboat in the Pacific is scary enough - surviving the ordeal with a carnivore on board is simply something else, especially as a kid. Was just amazed that this boy never let hope die and never let his mind stop thinking - ultimately his intellect, his efforts and his faith are what brought him ashore. A lesson for us all.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Lyrical; a perfect 10
Review: The novel received the Man Booker prize, and for good reason. I read about a book a week and I would say that this was by far the best book I read last year. The main character, Pi, named after a swimming pool in Paris, is a loveable, intelligent survivalist who finds himself on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic with one friend, Richard Parker. Richard Parker, unfortunely for Pi, is a Bengalese tiger, the only survivor, aside from Pi of a shipwreck in which Pi looses his whole family and their zoo which they were moving from India to Canada.I never wanted this book to end and am hungry for anything else Yann Martel plans to produce. I have given THE LIFE OF PI to my 75 year old grandmother, my 52 year old step-father, my 21 year old sister and each age group has given the same reaction as myself: absolute love. I highly recommend this novel, you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: perfection on the high seas...
Review: The synopsis for this book is short, and already fullsomely covered in the reviews on the site. I shan't go into the wither-tos and why-fors of the story for fear of repetition. I simply want to sell this book as a good Amazon reviewer should, and one of the most obvious aspects of this particular work that springs to mind when I consider my feelings whilst reading it is it's life affirming qualities. Now, I really don't like that phrase, 'life affirming'--it reminds me of words like pro-active and Salt Lake City--but I must concede that, on this occasion, it fits perfectly.
For me, to have life re-affirmed by a work of art is to be injected with a sense of hope for our species. When I look at "The Sunflowers" or listen to the last movement of the "Glorious Ninth", I am reminded of just how much we are capable. So too with "Life of Pi." This, like all the greatest works of art, is a piece that stands alone; a universe all to itself. This work is like a key in a lock; one gets the sense that it couldn't 'work' any other way. The world here created is a closed circuit lesson in humanity, reality, family and religion, whilst at the same time just being a beautiful composition with no real grounding in documentary reality whatsoever. 'Tsk tsk' I hear you say, 'some passages in the book couldn't be any more real if they were, well...real'. I agree, but that's not to say that they could ever actually happen in the real.
Martell's Pacific is at times an almost picture perfect rendition of the actual ocean, but like all great novelists, he is perfectly at home with just making it a stage; a big empty, lonely stage. Near the end of the book, such abstaction takes hold that I must confess, I felt like I was reading "Waiting for Godot" on acid! Fantastic.
Pi has to be one of my favourite literary characters. I've read reviews that refer to this 'child's' suffering, but what sets this protagonist apart from others of his kind is his unfathomable wisdom. When a child can attest to being a follower of all three of the world's major religions and defend his stance pitted against the 'wise men' of those orders; when he can then, without adult guidance, tame a Bengal tiger in the middle of the Pacific ocean; when a child behaves in this way, one is given the distinct impression that he is not a child. This old soul is the fulcrum for the whole book, and his compatibility with his purpose is, for me, unsurpassed. Again, he reminds me of all that is possible as a human being, in fact making me feel almost ashamed that my most exciting experiances have all been confined to my own cozy home land and mind-set.
The blurb on the back cover of the book announces that it's a story to make you believe in God. For me, to say that one believes in God is like saying one believes in the Sun. God is undeniable; everywhere and everything. In this respect, the book has only bolstered what I already knew to be true, and maybe, just maybe, it could swing a non-believer at least to concentrated thinking on the subject; a seldom made claim in this day and age
It's a book that stays with you long after you've finished it, and anyone who doesn't read it is either stupid or American or both (he said with his tongue firmly in his cheek.)
Rating: 
Summary: A well-written but dark story
Review: The book is well written, concise and with a lot of
vivid details. What I actually like most is the first
92 pages of the book, which took place in normal human
society, instead of later the survival and gruelsome
killing environment on the sea. From the child's eye,
this book gives interesting account of zoo animals,
their behavior and their relationship with humans. It
took away a lot of illusions about wild animals, which
are portrayed as cute and "free" and in the wild
world. I like the author's frankness in his
observation of animal nature, and sometimes human
nature. However, I deeply dislike the violent account of the
stories in the end, and the description of all those
gruesome details. I don't think a "realistic" story
has to recount those violent details. It's like a war
movie does not have to show us all those blood. I have
no objection to the believability of that second story
(in fact it is truer than the first one, with
animals). But I am appalled by the author's indulgence
with those violent description, and felt violated as a
human being. Some people said they hate "The Blue
Velvet" (movie) because a woman was raped on the
screen, which make them feel personally violated. I
have the same feeling with the second story of this
book. In the end, I don't feel I "learned" that much from
this book. To me, it's dark survival story, and a
crying of a lonely human soul. It's revelation of
trauma that has not been healed. It does not leave me
with uplifing spirit after reading this book, which
was what I got from books by Tolstoy such as "War and
peace". The value of a book that carries spirit of
humanity is showing the triumph of human courage and
kindness, not carnage and violence. Jack London has
many stories on survival in the nature, but how
uplifting they are. Even his story of that man with a
wolfe, it leaves with hope and admiration in the end.
To me, this is the key difference between a great novelist
and a small one who caters to low tastes.
Rating:
Summary: This book was a revelation
Review: It's brilliant. It's fantastic. I already have a list of people who will be getting this book as a chiristmas gift. Sure call me unoriginal, but read the book you'll understand. It is both subtle and smart and at the same time impossible to put down.
Rating:
Summary: A tremendous novel
Review: Writers and readers alike continue to marvel at Martel's magnificent Life of Pi. Who could imagine an engaging work about a boy marroned on a boat with a tiger? Yet martel's inventive story telling, unique voice, and thoughtful asides grip the reader, holding him or her for the whole of the book. Indeed, from begining to end one can only be awed by the authors tremendous imagination. Some readers apparently found Life of Pi slow, I enjoyed the books varried pacing. From page to page, I never became bored. The characters, boy and tiger alike, maintinaed my interest throughout. A truly worthwhile read.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good but doesn't trust smart audience
Review: This is one of the best novels I've read this year. What keeps me from giving it 5 stars is as follows: the 1st section is too long & not really needed once you see the progression of the story. Few novels need to go beyond 200-230 pgs, IMO. If you can't tell a story in that length there is something wrong with you as a writer. Most novels that are long is the result of the writers ego "This is an IMPORTANT novel & I have LOTS to say"- really books like those are just filled with puffery & don't read like steppenwolf (a small piece of fudge) but are more like scones- they look bigger but when you bite into them they are mostly air. So actually the fudge, though smaller, was more filling. The 2nd thing is that Martel didn't need to tell us who was what on the boat. I figured it out beforehand & was impressed by the subtlety, but once he told us who each person was, all subtlety was lost to the sea (bad pun). If people aren't smart enough to get it, too bad. Look where that put Kubrick? That ain't so bad is it?
Rich diction & language & wonderful descriptions fill this book. I recommend this despite the little flaws. It's fast & fun.
Rating:
Summary: one of the absolute best...
Review: perhaps the ones who don't like it just don't understand. incredible. there are no other words that can sufficiently explain how great this book is. the ones who think there is no philosophy or depth to it are generally to ignorant to see. actually, i haven't READ the book- i listened to it. maybe that's the reason. i recommend LISTENING to the book on tape/CD instead of reading it because the accent of the author adds a whole new depth to the story. i don't know what else to say except that it's incredible.
Rating:
Summary: Grossly overrated
Review: save your money. this brain-fart of a novel is about as entertaining to read as the back of a cereal box. i'm not a book burner but i would definitely make an exception for this crap. matter of fact, it's going right into the fire place after i finish this review.
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