Rating: 
Summary: Read It For Yourself.
Review: Let's face it, a story about a housewife home alone sleeping with an intriguing traveler could easily be a sleazy read, or boring and predictable. Not so in The Bridges of Madison County, while adultery is not exactly a beautiful concept, this story makes the affair seem like destiny. The only suffering is the sacrifices made by the lovers. Waller is a gifted writer, he describes everything so completely and beautifully. Though he describes Francesca and Robert as lovers, writing about their lovemaking, it is sensual and romantic. This is not graphic, not a trashy romance novel. Not something the kids should be reading, but appropriate in describing the intense love affair. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes and subtle details used to tell this story make it seem real. Even knowing how the story ends, I still found myself somehow thinking things could change. I felt for the characters, I understood Francesca's longing and Robert's unselfish understanding. I actually pitied Francesca's husband, though I didn't look at Francesca as an adulteress. I can't explain why. I read this novel right after THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez, and somehow both novels seemed to mesh in my mind, although quite different -- both are full of sadness and strange beauty. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Very much needed
Review: This warm, very much needed, intelligent, and caring book is a brilliant study of the human heart and the human condition. It's a story told with such tenderness and depth that it will break your heart. Though not sappy-sweet in sentimentality, it is warm and loving. Just beautiful. Would also like to recommend "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," and "Bark of the Dogwood" as two other excellent reads.
Rating: 
Summary: Sacrifice and betrayal
Review: A passionate first-sight love story that starts and ends in a matter of days.. a married woman and on the road photographer who try to avoid falling into each other but eventually can't and don't resist the passion inside .. the scenery and the beauty of the place also contributed to their adventure ..we don't know a lot about her family except what she tells us and a brief encounter with her husband.. I wasn't sure at the beginning if Francesca loved Kincaid or if it was the rebellious version of her that wanted some kind of adventure in her routine country life .. the ending is so tragic .. maybe she felt so guilty to pursue her love.. Kincaid wanted her protection and didn't get closer .. An extreme picture of love and betrayal .. I just can't imagined how Francesca lived such a life..I felt sorry for her sometimes and other times I believed that it was up to her to change the path of her life and revolt by just taking few major steps to make a happy home..I think the betrayal part was neglected by Waller.. A quick narration, beautiful language and a delicate choice of vocabulary that actually reveals the personalities of the characters ..
Rating:
Summary: A fine romance
Review: I re-read this book this weekend and was surprised at the reviews here. Some really hated the book and others loved it.
I read the book a couple of years ago and liked it. I don't understand the hateful reviews. You know, of course, that an arsonist destroyed the Cedar Bridge on Tuesday, 3 September, 2002. That's why I decided to read the book again. I was in Iowa at the time of the movie premiere in 1995, but did not attend any events connected with it. A comment on page 78 reflects the view of the average Iowan.
"And why in the world would anybody wanna take pictures of 'em?
(The covered bridges.) They're just all fallin' down in bad shape." I grew up a few miles north of Madison County, Iowa, and never went to see the wooden bridges. One thing that I noticed the author missed was I am sure that neighbors noticed Kincaid's pickup at the Johnson farm. In a rural community there are no secrets. There was no mention of him parking the truck out of sight. Someone must have seen it. I think city slickers may have had trouble with this story, but we real people did not.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, I admit it....
Review: I stayed with this sappy book.... but it really was a loser. The family book discussion lasted only about 20 minutes.
Rating:
Summary: A SURPRISE BESTSELLER ABOUT A FOUR DAY AFFAIR
Review: A surprise, word-of-mouth bestseller, "The Bridges Of Madison County" details a passionate four day affair between a forty-five year old Iowa farmwife named Francesca and fifty-two year old "National Geographic" photographer Robert Kincaid who ends up at her doorstep asking for directions to several historic covered bridges that he has been assigned to film. Almost immediately they're drawn to each other: she to his sensitivity and aura of mystery, and he to her beauty and intelligence. Of course, they fall in love and are in love and make adulterous love all over the place. He doesn't understand how Francesca's husband could be so unappreciative of his wife, and asks her to run away with him, leave behind the house and kids, and travel the world as his soulmate. But responsiblity prevails: responsibility and a genuine compassion for all those who would be hurt and (quite possibly) destroyed by such a decision. Even though this sounds like a typical soap opera plot, author Robert Waller turns it into an effective treatise for the necessity of excitement, poetry, spirituality, sexual passion, and creativity in a marriage in order to prevent the spark of romanticism from dying out and leaving both members feeling like co-habitants rather than soulmates raptured in love and transformed into a body of one flesh, one heart, and one spirit for all eternity. The best aspects of "Madison County" employ such simple truths, but the story has several flaws: too many times he overreaches in making Robert Kincaid assume mythical proportions and the sensual/mystical allusions teeter-totter from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the entire scene with the older kids after their mother's death when they discover her secret affair strikes a totally false note (if I knew my mother had had an affair with a stranger and screwed around with him in my father's bed I don't think I would say, "Gosh, she was so much more mature than I am." I would be pissed off with a capital P). Come to think of it, "Madison County" would have been better if Fancesca and Robert hadn't slept together (now that would make for some interesting tension), or at least felt a little guilty about it considering that she was married and that adultery is wrong no matter how you try to justify it. The movie version at least tries to deal with the situation a little more realistically. The book does not even though the overall arc of the story works and is deeply moving. HARSH LANGUAGE: about 20 words, VIOLENCE: only 1 reference to Kincaid's war time history, SEXUAL REFERENCES: about 10 explicit scenes and/or descriptions dealing with their adulterous affair.
Rating:
Summary: Great Love Story
Review: Bridges of Madison County.
By, Robert James Waller The Book Bridge of Madison County is fiction story. This book is mostly about love and emotions through out the whole story. The main characters a photographer named Robert Kincaid, and a housewife named Francesca. Robert Kincaid carried an army knife in his sock, so that if something happens he can use it and he always had a bottle of red whine in his knapsack. He would carry that around because his favorite wine was red and he always drank it while he ate. Francesca was a housewife whose husband really didn't acknowledge Francesca. Robert and Francesca were friends at first but then they started to spend sometime together and they both fall in love with each other. The only problem was that Francesca had a husband. This book was very interesting because the heart can really play games like that and make you fall in love when you really know you shouldn't. I didn't like the ending because I think he could have ended this story a little better. This book is similar to a lot of other books because this type of situation happens in every day type relationships. This book overall was good. I personally think that the author could have finished the ending of the story a little bit better. This is a good book if you like romance and day to day relationships.
Rating:
Summary: FUN & QUICK, BUT NOT THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL
Review: Robert Kinkaid stops and asks directions of Francesca Johnson while photographing covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa. Its love at first sight. Most people know this story by now. What is interesting is the self-serving way Waller writes himself into the fantasy, so thinly desguised. I mean really, he names his principal character Robert? You would think he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Though the book tries to be noble, with Robert staying away and Francesca sticking with her responsibilities to her family, Francesca is still an aldulterous whore no matter how you slice it. An interesting book to while away an afternoon.
Rating: 
Summary: The movie? GREAT The Book??? Horrid
Review: This is an awful book. The dialogue this guy writes... Pul-lease! Like anyone talks that way!!! Be serious. I usually think Clint Eastwood mucks up stuff when he takes book and does a movie--look at Midnight in the Garden...--but here, he definitely improved it. I left the book in a drawer at a hotel b/c it was SO bad.
Rating:
Summary: A moving look at love, loss, and sacrifice.
Review: _____________
Fluff or not? Not
_____________ This story moved me. Profoundly. Life, all the different kinds of love, lust, loneliness, trust, commitement, and an ultimate choice are all contained in Waller's short manuscript. Kincaid's charisma practically leaps off the page and Francesca's almost resigned acceptance of her quiet life and unfulfilled dreams has a distinctly tragic air. The few short days these lovers spend together changes everyone and each encounter serves to make Francesca's difficult choice only more difficult. Waller manages to weave a subtle, yet continual and overarching sadness throughout the tale for, throughout Francesca's entire encounter with Kincaid, there is never any real doubt as to how the story will end. We all know the outcome, and yet find ourselves hoping that somehow, someway Francesca will make the selfish choice, and yet we know she won't give us that chance to ever think less of her. +: poetry, love, loss, a real tear jerker.
warning: you can't help but become personally invested in this tale.
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