Rating: 
Summary: "I was born in a small town..."
Review: Ok, first with the criticisms:
Yes, some developments are overdone and can be seen coming a mile away. And it's also true that the book is wordy and complex. Finally, the ending does disappoint just a bit.Nonetheless, this book rocks! I read Russo's "Straight Man" a few years ago and enjoyed it, but it wasn't a book that stayed with me. "Empire Falls" will stay with me because the characters just ring so true. I am another reviewer who grew up in a small town and left for college in the city. Unlike Miles, I never went back (except to visit briefly). I'm from Montana, but it seems a small town is a small town. An author who can create so many fleshed-out, believable characters is something rare. I give this book my highest recommendation. Oh, and I also loved "The Corrections," though many reviewers seem to view the two novels as an "either-or" proposition. Both are great books about people who feel real.
Rating:
Summary: Russo 's Poignant Tale of Small Town Life Is Rewarding Read
Review: This is my first novel by Richard Russo and I was captivated by his ability to breathe life into a diverse group of characters. From protagonist Miles Roby to his irascible father Max, his hauntingly sad mother Grace, his nemesis Mrs. Whiting, his touching daughter Tick, and many more, we are treated to people described so vividly they come to life and seem like the people we might know and want to either hang out with or avoid at all costs if we lived in Empire Falls. There are too many plot lines to detail, but they all are brought together nicely and no reader is left with unanswered questions thanks to an interesting epilogue. All the problems of seeking a better life but being relegated to the blue collar life of a mill town whose mill has long closed, are embodied in Miles Roby, reluctant proprietor of the town's grill. In the opening pages he sees his teen-age daughter Tick walking home from school with a hunched back weighed down by her symbolic backpack representing all the problems she faces---the dissolution of her parents marriage, a stepfather she despises, a widening emotional gap with her mother, the dreaded loss of friends and social standing, and being coupled with the school's most tortured and disturbed student. The story moves slowly but the characters are so richly drawn you will be totally engrossed and hard pressed to put this one down. When the story does reach its climax, there are plenty of shocks and surprises and a realization that life is not perfect and its flaws are with us forever to either cope with or be overwhelmed by.
Rating: 
Summary: Are they just giving Pulitzers away?
Review: While I'd never read a book by Richard Russo before this, I can't say I feel compelled to read any of his other works after reading Empire Falls. While the first hundred pages or so introduced some interesting characters, the next several hundred pages were painfully slow, and I became progressively impatient with the characters and the plot for the next several hundred pages, as I awaited the novel's predictable ending. Eventually the ending came, and I was glad when it did.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful book
Review: This is a very interesting novel about a small town in Maine and the interesting cast of characters who live there. I loved every part of this book except I was mildly dissatisfied with the ending. I didn't feel that the motives behind Mrs. Whiting's actions were really explained. And the fate of the town is kind of left up in the air, I felt. Still, this is a book well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: It bored me to sleep
Review: How many times can a writer use the phrases "After all" and "of course" in a 500 page book and still win a Pulitzer? Apparently, about 500. The writing in this book is lethally dull, the characters are uninteresting and the plot limps along until the very end when it commits suicide. Puh-leeze.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read but flawed
Review: A+ for the pace. You won't put this down.
A+ for simple and accessible prose.
A+ for making secondary characters come to life.
A+ for humor. I laughed outloud a number of times within 10 minutes of picking it up. B- for consistency. Logical flaws and errors. Miles couldn't both be working at the Empire Grill during college summers as it says at book's onset and working in Rhode Island at Pete's parents' place. Horace can't be both excessively polite and insulting to Walt unless the author provides more nuance to his character. Other small flaws that you think the author and editor missed.
C for originality in characters. You'll care about them and want to know what happens to them, but is there a single one who isn't a stereotype? The computer nerd, the gay priest, the sponge-drunk father, the college dropout, the wife who leaves her blue-collar husband for a bigger wallet and sexual fulfillment in her 40s? At times "Empire Falls" reminded me of "The Shipping News" as they are both tales of blue-collar bumblers who are left by their wives. Overall: B+ - A Pulitzer Prize winner in the age of Hollywood. Entertaining, it is. Fine literature, it ain't. It's like Updike without the literary style or masterful metaphors.
Rating:
Summary: Empire Falls
Review: I loved it! A real page turner about life in a mill town. Characters are as real as can be!
A must read!
Rating:
Summary: The male climax
Review: I had one problem with this simple, subtle, wide, wise novel,and that was the climax, too violent, too out of tone, too
out of touch with small-town America. It reminded me of the climax of Dubus's House of Sand and Fog, gratuitous
gore in the midst of nuance. Why do male writers insist on
jolting their gentle readers out of all relation to their stories?
Rating:
Summary: A Well Crafted Tale
Review: This the first book by Richard Russo that I have read. The characters are richly drawn and very real. The book's pacing and prose are suberb. I found myself purposefully slowing down my reading in the last 100 pages, savoring the story and the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Russo back to his Roots
Review: While I can settle down with Russo's most recent blue collar mythmaking for a good solid, wry and heartwarming read anytime, he may have tapped out the vein of inspiration that so richly powered his previous novels. The lovable characters here (including the love-to-hate Jimmy Minty) are of course redux with new names (spot the sinister anti-hero's red Camaro). I am of the opinion that Straigh Man was Russo's best turn yet at new work. In Empire Falls Richard Russo has returned, to his bread and butter expectedly, if not lamentably. A violent twist at the end doesn't serve this book too well - perhaps it's time for Russo to start climbing another mountain.
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