Rating: 
Summary: amazing novel.
Review: first of all, i am a 14 y/o boy in Aus. i have never even LOOKED at amazon.com before. but when i read L.O.P. i became so totally engrossed with it by the end that i had to write a review here.yann martel's novel is compelling, moving, spectacularly descriptive, and honestly the best book i have ever read. i became entranced with the look into Pi's life and mind. the way martell brings the world to life, and keeps the book crackling with life, is fare beyond me. but i have honestly never read a better book. just as it says, L.O.P. makes you believe in god. with a mix of fantasy, descriptive text, and realism, Martell has created a novel worthy of the Man Booker prize. i can guarantee this to any semi-literate teen. outstanding
Rating:
Summary: Reviewers Missed the Point
Review: The story shows how a person imbued with faiths,three in this case, and reared by loving intelligent parents, can suffer a horrific experience, (mother eaten, etc.), and weave a mental tale that preserves his sanity but still can be revealed as a simple defense mechanisim to Japanese interrogaters. Readers do not seem to understand that no quadrupeds were ever really in the lifeboat,but they remain integral to the story. Pi would never be overcome by combat stress. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Gourmet brain food.
Review: Simple and profound sentences are a cornucopia of rich words -like brain food. Gourmet brain food. One senence as an entire chapter was stunning. Perfect read at the beach for an exhilarating sensory experience. A very very good book.
Rating:
Summary: the kind of book you want to buy in bulk
Review: this is the kind of book that you want to pass out to all your friends. and your enemies too. martel's magic is telling the story of life and humanity under the cover of a boy and a tiger. the quest may not be to find the meaning of all life, but to find meaning and joy (such an overused word, but what else can one call it?) in one's own. the narrator claims his to be a story that will make you believe in god. but perhaps it is not the conversion of the unbelievers, but making the connection from whatever sense of wonder one has to the possibility of god. who knew 7 months in a lifeboat could be so enthralling?
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre at best
Review: This book just wasn't very interesting once Pi's boat went down. I didn't feel like reading half a book about this situation. I like books with strong character development, and I this this book is lacking just that.
Rating:
Summary: Speachless
Review: There were times in this tragicomic book that I simply had to let go, let go of reason, let go of that voice that intrudes the mind when incongruence surfaces, and place myself firmly in the hands of the author, and I did so willingly. And yet I was totally unprepared for where Pi and Mr. Martel would take me. Now if only I would let God do the same...Read this book...read this book....read this book. I close with a great quote from Pi..."Reason is excellent for getting food...but be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater."
Rating:
Summary: I loved it and i'll remember it always
Review: I loved this book, it was meaningful to me. I believe it to be a true story. I too, must turn this into a discussion forum. I found parts of it humorous, though some may not have. And the point of this is to let all of you who overlooked the ending, as my mother did, know that perhaps we can't so easily guess which story is true.I'm worried now about spoiling the ending for those who have yet to read the book...so if you dont want it spoiled, stop reading this! Now at the end Pi tells a second story, do you find it peculiar that the first story had so much more detail? I know i never pay that close attention when events occur in my life, and yet everything symbolized everything else. Pi, himself said: " The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it to be, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?"
He could have very well interpreted the last story into the first because the last was so terrible. Then again who knows the working of a young man's mind?
Also i would like to add that i do and will forever believe in God, and it is because not only do I have faith but because I am a woman of science. Proof is about you, every effect has a cause, eh? well if God didn't start the motion then who did? I will never know what story is true..i hope its the one with animals though.I know this may have no relavence to anyone out there, but i hope it intrigues you to buy the book.( not a bad argument coming from a 14-year old though ;) )
Rating: 
Summary: The Meaning of Life
Review: When first reading this wonderfully modest book, I kept waiting for the appearance of bad writing, sentimentality, or sensationalism: all qualities of many current literary novels. But instead I found a kind of sweetness, despite the awesome presence of Thomas Parker and his desire to devour. Many other writers would have anthropomorphised the tiger, but Martel, smart man that he is, left the animal for what he is...an animal. But none the less relevant to Pi. Pi's constant musings and his ironic and bizarre adventures could have become a Disney JUNGLE BOOK wanna-be. Instead Martel left us the chance to contemplate our own immortality and really come to grips with what might be a version of the meaning of life, after all. Devouring not withstanding, the tiger and his mate kept me connected throughout the entire book. I can almost imagine this being a book to read with the family.
Rating:
Summary: Elegant, beautifully paced tale of survival
Review: Martell's wonderful book is equally enjoyable as a robust survivor story as it is a metaphor for religious suspension of disbelief. The concise chapters - 21,22 particularly but all of them ultimately - bend this simple tale into a glorious ride across the Pacific. Water imagery abounds, and is perhaps the only slightly forced aspect of the book, but hell, the story involves a kid on a boat at sea, so we'll forgive Martell for this. In fact, there is significance in almost everything: the culinary references, the town of Pondicherry, Pi Patel's own name and its various forms, the stories both real and invented, and the individual animals and their characteristics. This is a deceptively rich text, and you'll probably only realise this at the end, when you'll sit where you are for a few minutes and contemplate your perception of the world, God, truth and fiction. A worthy winner of the Booker, and an author to watch in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Contender for the best book I've read in a long time
Review: Two stories are told about how a teenage boy survived many months in a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean before finally making it to safety. The first of those stories occupies 99% of the book. The second story is dragged out of him by investigators, and is told at the very end. Obviously, the second story is the true one, and it is absurd for reviewers to claim that they don't know which is true. The second story will shock you and make you sad, and it will make you understand why the boy had to construct the other story. I don't want to spoil it so you will have to read the book to find out what happens. The one thing I can tell you without hurting your enjoyment of the book is that it is excellent and will stay with you like few stories will. I don't give out five stars lightly.
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