Rating: 
Summary: Princes of Maine, Kings of New England
Review: Set in St. Clouds, Maine in the 1930's, John Irving's novel THE CIDER HOUSE RULES is a story about an orphan who is trying to figure out where he belongs and also where he will be of use. The main character, Homer Wells, is an orphan who is brought back to the orphanage several times by abusibe adoptive parents. He feels that he belongs to the orphanage. "Your going the rong way kid," a man told Homer when he was running back to the orphanage. "No, I just belongs there, for now." When he becomes a little bit older. Dr. Larch teaches him how to deliver babies and how to abort them. God's work and the Devil's work, both God's work according to Dr. Larch even though Homer doesn't want to be apart of abortions. Throughout the book Homer always encounters rules, and what he has to live by. His regulation for life ; he learns new things where ever he goes, This book is about growning up and the choices we make. Sometimes we have to do stuff and we don't necessarily want to. This book is of a very mature content and deals with a lot of serious issues such as: abortion, addiction, racism, homosexuality, and more... John Irving creates a hero in Homer Wells and Dr. Larch, They were Princes of maine, and Kings of New England, if there ever were any."
Rating: 
Summary: wonderful
Review: John Irving is a wonderful writer and this book does not disappoint. It's the beautifully written story of a young boy in the first decades of the 1900s, who leaves the only home he's ever known, an orphanage, to see the world. Tobey's story is not all the book is about, however. It also deals with abortion-- which was, of course, illegal during the time the book takes place-- and abortion's ethics.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully balanced book about a difficult subject.
Review: John Irving has written a remarkable novel that manages to thughtfully address both sides of the abortion debate. On the one hand he gives us Homer Wells, a remarkable young man who strongly opposed to abortion. After all, he was abandoned at an orphange by a mother who didn't want him. and he can keenly appreciate the fact that he would not be alive if abortion had been readily available to his mother. On the other hand, Irving paints a compassionate picture of the women who desperately need access to safe abortions - those who would otherwise risk their very lives to rid themselves of an unwanted baby and those who are victims of rape and incest. Even though this is a weighty subject, Irving manages to address it in a beautiful story that is often amusing, always entertaining and never preachy. If you enjoyed the movie, you will no doubt also enjoy this novel. This is a richer, more faceted story than the one in movie and sometimes can be surprisingly crude and brutal. Nevertheless, it is a charming novel and one all readers will long remember.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book! Ever!
Review: I reviewed this book after I watched the film played by Tobey. I think the book is much more interesting than the film. The story about an Orphan house always drives me crazy but this version turns out to be the greatest. I think the world Homer came to discover was only of the darksides. It wasn't fair to him that everybody considered him belong to the house, he deserved better than that. The world the Author created for him was so unfair.
Rating:
Summary: Moving...deeply human
Review: As ever, Irving's characters struggle and stumble through their lives while carrying us along with them quite willingly. I never want his stories to end, and I can't ever forget his characters.
Rating:
Summary: A view of both sides of abortion
Review: When you read a book after you've watch the movie you normally lose something because you know the ending. Does the hero get the girl or not? But what was different with this novel was there was a different approach to the plot. The story does revovle around Homer Wells an orphan destined to stay one but it also lets in on Wilbur Larch. It gave the answer to why doctors perform abortion, or at least why Dr. Larch thought it was a necessary evil to prevent the making of orphans. On the other hand it allows Homer's feelings of why he won't do it to be added in to keep a balance. It also goes farther into Homer's life in the orphanage including a romance left out of the movie. In addition it developed more into his relationship with Candy that evenutally led to a major fault in their characters as well as a secret they were forced to keep. When the story ends you are given satisfaction to what Irving has left you with. You feel as if you know the characters and what they were thinking every step of the way. If you are pro-abortion or anti-abortion then you may want to read this to better understand where the other is coming from. The world is not a perfect place and there are a few solutions just not ones that all will like and agree with.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fantastic
Review: This book is a heartbreaking and beautifully told story of love, heartache, and sacrifice. Irving is an amazing writer and I feel transported to another place when I read him. I finished this book and couldn't stop thinking about it for days afterwards. I have a soft spot for the love shared between Dr. Larch and Homer Wells. This book is a work of art!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best that I have read in a long time . . .
Review: This book is incredibly subtle, but it packs a punch unlike any other book I have read in a long time. It stays with you long after the last page--and when you reach the last page, you just want to go back and start all over again. This was the first John Irving I had ever read, and I have to say, he has made me a fan. You know the story--just buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: my favourite book!
Review: I first read this book i was just 12 or 13. Homer is such an amazing child, young boy and man that you understand every change in his mind and his devotion to those woman is really great because he doesn't understand why a woman can abort. This "orphan" who choose a so strange "family" give you a new way of live your own life. Like he's used to, John Irving write with this amazing mix of tragedy and humour that you can't resist!
Rating:
Summary: A seven-course meal for the spiritually hungry
Review: It kind of reads like the opening line of a joke: What do apple farming, Charles Dickens, and the abortion industry have to do with one young boy growing up in Maine? Only John Irving could pull this off, drawing the connections clearly and lucicly and more than any other author could, making us care. Yes, they made a movie with the same name, and yes, the movie was remarkably true to the book. Yet the movie contained only about 1% of the plot and the depth of the novel. Irving tells so many different stories here, but these stories are not about Homer Wells or Dr. Larch or any of the other characters he depicts. If we look deeply enough, we realize that the real story here is actually our own. We all come across rules in our everyday lives, and most of us follow them unquestioningly. But Irving seems to say in this novel that rules are not always where the truest wisdom is to be found; they can even be a "civilized" form of evil. He exhorts the reader to determine what is evil and eliminate it -- to throw away our preconceptions and look at many difficult issues anew. Irving tackles all of this with his usual grace, good humour, and in this case, also, with extensive and accurate medical and historical research. This is an epic, thicker than the usual novel, but it's taken me years of regular re-reading to fully digest this novel... if indeed, I actually have yet. If you don't like Irving, you won't like this one, either. But if you've never sampled his work, this is as good a place to start as any. It's not endearing, but it was never meant to be. It's a heartfelt statement not only about the way the world is, but how it should be.
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