Rating: 
Summary: I do not think this book makes you believe in God
Review: I have rated this book with 5 stars because I really liked it, I couldn't stop
reading it after I finished it, which implied losing a lot of sleeping hours.
However, my main concern regarding other comments I have read here is relating
the statement that this book makes you believe in God. I do not agree with this
statement. I think that no book can convince an atheist to believe in God, as
no book can convince a believer in God to change his/her mind. Furthermore, I
do not think that this is the aim of the author. Instead, my feeling is that it
talks more about the fact that we can not know the "true history", and, from
this point of view, every interpretation is acceptable and must be respected.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant! Brilliant book!
Review: Life of Pi is an engaging literary prose that will leave you spellbound once you have finished the book. With a tiger named Richard Parker, this book goes beyond the threshold of fables- A wondrous, wondrous treat...a literary masterpiece! Buy the book! You will not regret it!
Rating: 
Summary: numb
Review: This is a very gruesome story which has little to do with God. It would have been better without the last few chapters. There is very little mention of religion after the shipwreck. The book actually deals more with the dark side of man. Yuck.
Rating:
Summary: All About Faith
Review: If you want to read an outstanding novel about faith plus the jolt of adventure, then this is for you. It was the cover that intrigued me. But once you start reading the book, its well written and beautiful chapters unfold to form a different world of excitement and interest. The book starts out with the teenager Pi Pital who lives in Pondicherry, India. His father is a zoologest and runs a zoo in that city. He explains his experiences with zoo animals and what he has learned. This first part also explores his desire to know God and his decision to follow three religions: Catholocism, Islam and Judaism. The second part of the book focuses on his journey at sea. He is stuck on a large lifeboat with a haina, an injured zebra, a sick orangutan and a hungry Bengal tiger. Eventually, it is just him, the tiger and a small cooler full of different foods. The story continues to demonstrate his faith in God and how he attempts to survive at sea, plus his fluctuating mental state. This book takes an interesting approach to storytelling. It is told from Pi's point of view and that allows his mental state and faith to be easily explored. Although there is little dialogue in the main parts of the book, the descriptions and thoughts display the story successfully. Definately a classic and will be read in many high schools in the days to come.
Rating: 
Summary: A story about The Story
Review: By turns hilarious, brutal, believable, ridiculous, beautiful, harrowing - ultimately an allegory. My complaint is that I wish it had stayed a story and not become openly a meditation on The Story. If you liked this book, try John Gardner's Grendel. I rank that 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: A wonderful read. It's been a month since I finished and still think about this book from time to time. Excellent writing and story telling.
Rating:
Summary: A Story to Believe In
Review: "I have a story that will make you believe in God."
"That's a tall order."
"Not so tall that you can't reach." Yann Martel won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for his 2001 original novel Life of Pi, a unique and entertaining tale that seems to defy one's ability to place it in a certain genre. It is, by parts, a picturesque account of the life of an Indian schoolboy and son of a zookeeper; a brazen tale of a castaway's survival on the open seas; a display of sardonic humor and wit. Life of Pi can be described by a host of words, and all would be correct: clever, imaginative, funny, dramatic, brutal, sad, triumphant, horrifying, serious, sweeping, impassioned, shocking, amazing; it is all of those things. Above all, it is a memorable and unique read that crams so many pages worth of story into a tightly wound, briskly paced, and highly enjoyable book.
Rating:
Summary: Truth or fiction? You decide
Review: I'd rate this as a classic story. First of all, the narrator has a juicy, irridescent curious and intelligent mind that enticed me to be just as curious as he was. Secondly, the adventures he went through were explained in an order that enhanced the reading experience, only to make it more entertaining. Thirdly, it promised to make me believe in God. Since I'm a skeptic, I didn't htink it was possible. Surely enough it wasn't - but it did give a very convincing argument why I should. Why accept "dry, yeastless factuality" when you can revel in the better story? This book about faith and natural beauty was very touching, and I think it'd be a pleasing experience for any reader.
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking
Review: This is a book that will revive you spiritually. Pi Patel is a brilliant character, full of life and inspiration. A victorious ending was promised, but I can't bear it when something is so psychologically and emotionally painful that it has to be masked with a fabricated story. I don't know what exactly happened to Pi Patel, but it was a painful experience. Great book though. I'd like to meet him.
Rating:
Summary: An invitation to consider, if not believe in, God
Review: I've never written an Amazon.com review before, but this book has compelled me to. While I adored the author's descriptions, characterizations and humanity, it was the spiritual questions that Pi asks us to consider, that made this one of my all-time favorite books. For me, the heart of the book is at the end, when Pi and the Japanese officials converse about the sinking of the ship. Pi asks us to consider if, given that the event has already taken place, and there is no one now living (except him) who witnessed it, wouldn't the officials prefer "the better story" of his lifeboat experience...by which he is proposing to us, the readers, "the better story" of some representation of God. Early in the book, Pi seeks insight from Christianity and Islam, as well as his native Hinduism, so we are invited to consider images of God from these three perspectives. Pi understands atheists, who may make a "deathbed leap of faith," but has no patience for agnostics, who stay "beholden to dry, yeastless factuality" and reason. Pi doesn't prescribe to us WHICH "better story" to choose (which is why I can love the book), but, metaphorically through his astounding adventures aboard the lifeboat, invites us to consider the many marvelous ways of envisioning the Eternal. All my interpretation aside, this is also a wonderfully descriptive and exciting adventure story, along the lines of "Towing Jehovah" by James Morrow. Granted, it is a bit bloody and violent at times, but in the spirit of the honest and necessary violence of the carnivore. This is a book to think about; it even includes a Reading Group Guide at the end, just in case you want to add to the multitude of questions that will bubble up for you as you read it.
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