Rating: 
Summary: a great story about survival and animals
Review: Life of Pi is a great adventure story about how a zookeeper's son named Pi Patel who survives for 227 days in a lifeboat on the Pacific Ocean. Pi's main companion on the boat is a 450 pound tiger named Richard Parker after the animal's captor. Also aboard the lifeboat is a mischievous hyena and a docile zebra. I loved reading about how these 3 animals lived so close together and how their different personalities clashed. What is interesting is how Pi's attitude toward the tiger changes in the book. He is afraid of the tiger at the beginning of the book, but his fear disappears by the end. Pi survives because he has to take care of Richard Parker. The mere existence of the tiger gives Pi's life a purpose. Pi feeds the tiger, cleans up after, and even tries to tame it. Pi has an imaginary conversation with Richard Parker. about food and life in one of the most interesting parts of the book. The tiger shows his loyalty by saving Pi's life fighting a shark in one of the most exciting scenes in the book. Pi Patel is a very resourceful character. He fishes for fish and turtle to entertain and feed himself. Pi uses the turtle as a source of food. He even drinks the blood of the turtle when his water supply gets low. He uses the turtle shell as a shield for protection and as a bowl for his meal. He eventually eats shark as a source of food. Pi even makes a pretty durable raft out of oars and life jackets. I learned in this book that tigers emit a friendly roar called prusten. This indicates a sign of friendliness. I also learned that a solar still is a device that turns saltwater into fresh water. Life of Pi is a wonderful book about a man's will to survive. It is written very descriptively. This novel is also very informative with lots of details about behaviors and personalities of different animals. I enjoyed it very much.
Rating: 
Summary: Underwhelming
Review: I couldn't be more surprised that the Amazon.com editors chose this book to top their 2002 list. Has it been that bleak of a fiction year? Sad. There is little about the story that of Pi made me feel compassion for his circumstances and condition. The writing is decent, but nothing more. The book is quite short and could have been printed on half of the pages used. I recommend getting this one at the library, if at all.
Rating:
Summary: Every artist dips his brush in his own soul
Review: A great book that was a joy to read! Although I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I thought it had something to do with bladder infections. If anyone knows what to do about a burning sensation please email me.
Rating:
Summary: Pi Is Tremendous!
Review: Though the jacket suggests that you may end up beleiving in God, while a lofty notion, just READ this book! I stayed awake late trying to read "just one more page"; so mesmerizing was this tale. I now have my 13 year old daughter reading this tremendous work. Incredible, inspiring, indomitable in spirit, this book is for everyone. I will read it again, I miss it already!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely a must read
Review: I heard an excerpt of this book on NPR and from that I was hooked. It is absolutely captivating, imaginative and beautifully written. It is a linquistic marvel. The situations that Pi experiences with Richard Parker are completely believable and breath taking. You will not be able to put this book down. There was not one slow part to the book that made me want to put it down. It is like a fine red wine that keeps opening up in its complexity and color, and then tickles your taste buds for more. The book has humor, drama, compassion and faith and they are blended so wonderfully. I would recommend to anyone who likes a great story.
Rating:
Summary: Magnif-pi-cent!
Review: Yann Martel has come a long way since his first novel, "Story of Keybab", and this shows through in this Booker Prize winning novel, "Life of Pi". Comparisons to Ian Hennessy's masterpiece, "A Tale of Chipps", are unwarranted, and though the opening chapter "Meat and Potato" will prompt some to recall the work of Robert Courvoisier, in particular his maiden opus "Chikken in a Baskit", the following two chapters, "Chicken and Mushroom", and "Steak and Kidney" will put pay to such shallow-minded ideas. There is little wrong with this novel, and I can't highly recommend it enough, although some will find the penultimate chapter "Lamb and Peas" a little hard to swallow.
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Summary: Pi is not a mystical number
Review: I'm amazed at the scathing criticism I've read here. This book doesn't deserve it . Forget about the awards, just read the story and take the time to imagine the scenes in detail, remember that this is a tale, a tale of survival from someone with a different tradition of story telling. Consider the interesting side trips on zoo-keeping and animals and the search for meaning through religion. Above all, remember your geometry -- pi is the circumference of ANY circle divided by its diameter, a non-terminating never repeating decimal that is classified by mathematicians as irrational and transcendental but NOT mystical. Pi is more than just a nickname here.
Rating:
Summary: 3.14 megastars for Life of Pi
Review: May not make you believe in God but will certainly help you face the tiger in your own lifeboat. A tour-de-force of docudrama reminiscent of Henry David Hwang's retelling drama M. Butterfly. Best book of the year according to our book club gurus!
Rating:
Summary: The Life of Pi
Review: I bought this book because it was nominated for the Booker Prize. Frankly, after reading it I was surprised the Booker committee had picked Mr. Martel as the 2002 winner. The book starts out fine -- Pi is an engaging character with an interesting life in Pondicherry. However, half way through the novel, Mr. Martel kills off Pi's family in a shipwreck and then it becomes a gruesome tale of survival at sea with detail descriptions of evisceration. I really don't understand how some your readers described the second half of the book as an "incredible" journey. It was a bloody, horrible story. And why does the inside sleeve of the say it's such a "wondrous storytelling that it may make you believe in God." Give me a break!
Rating: 
Summary: engrossing yarn
Review: Once I was travelling through Europe on a train and at night my companions and I told each other stories to pass the time. I told them "The Nose" by Gogol. When I got to the part where the nose was apprehended at the border trying to escape disguised as a civil servant, they reacted with extreme disbelief. Gogol's story so stretched their imagination that they could no longer continue to listen to it, rather like the Japanese officials at the end of "The Life of PI". The Life of Pi is gripping -- I got it yesterday, and read it this morning in one sitting. However it is slightly too "cute" (the tiger's name, the multiplicity of religions, etc.) to be great: it just misses. (This is why I gave it 4 rather than 5 stars.)
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