Rating: 
Summary: Love after 40
Review: A married woman comes across a photographer in his fifties and lives a second chance in love. The story is nice and easy to read, in fact, the book finishes sooner that you could have imagined but, after reading the end, you'll realize there wasn't much more to say.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but overrated love story
Review: This brief book (took me about three hours to finish) has its high points but at other times wallows in unrealistic dialogue and unlikely characterizations. Robert Kincaid is a well-rounded character, but Francesca -- an Italian immigrant turned English literature teacher (!) -- misses the mark after a decent start. Particularly disappointing were the dialogue between Robert and herself, discussing their future, which reads like the author talking with himself; as well as the letter to her children at the end of the book, which sounds as if it were written to two strangers.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books I've read!!
Review: I can't believe anyone would not love this book! It is so well-written that it pulls you in and takes you through the emotions of it's characters. It is a beautiful story about two people...soulmates...who were lucky enough to find each other, but couldn't be together. Measured in mintues, they were only together for a short time, but it was enough to last them the rest of their lives. It is about a woman, who is a wife and mother when she meets her soulmate. He is a photographer and a travler, who is on an assignment when he meets her. They share only a few days together, while her family is away, but spend the rest of their lives yearning to be together while knowing that even though they can't be together, they were blessed to find the kind of love that most people spend their whole lives looking for.
I also enjoyed the author's approach to telling this story. He tells it as if Francesca's children approached him with her diaries, letters and other mementos and asked him to tell their mother's secret love story. What an interesting approach!
Rating:
Summary: Lovers in fiction
Review: For all the cynics: 1) This is fiction - why does it have to be plausible? 2) Why should the style of writing be to your liking? 3) If you want realism - read the newspaper instead. 4) If you don't like it - who cares; they are plenty who do! Oh by the way, the book is terrific!
Rating:
Summary: Quiero ponerlo en español para los de habla hispana...
Review: Este libro narra una realidad de dualismo, por una parte todos los hombres y todas la mujeres, en algun momento de nuestra vida creemos que todo se ha acabado o se esta acabando, pero para la mujer casada con un machista( el 99 % de los hombres lo somos)la realidad podria ser peor. A mi personalmente las aventuras extramaritales me tienen sin cuidado y cada quien las tenga o no sera su asunto. El gran dilema que se plantea aqui es la eleccion: que queremos? Una persona aburrida a nuestro lado, pero buena? que es parte de nuestro yo mas intimo, nuestro conyuge? O una aventura que se quiera o no solo durara un breve espacio de meses a lo sumo? Sobra decir que la eleccion es personal, pero creo que todo hombre y mujer en relacion de riezgo sentimental debería leer este excelente libro. La pasion pasa, el amor si es honesto, es perenne como la hierba... Nunca he encontado en la America Hispana un divorciado o divorciada feliz, y eso algo debe significar...al menos para los que aun estamos casados.
Rating: 
Summary: A magnificent love story.
Review: Read and written by the author, this audio version of a love story so passionate, so powerful, so potent, is a great mind escape for a few hours. I found myself lost in the soft lull of Robert James Waller's voice as he took me to Madison County, Iowa, and showed me the covered bridges, the fields and meadows, the sunrises and sunsets, and the truest love in the history of time. Francesca is an Iowa farm wife, who meets Robert Kincaid, writer, photographer, from Bellingham, Washington one hot, dusty day when he stops at her farm for directions. What follows is a love story so profound and so moving, you will wish you had experienced it yourself. It IS a bit sappy, and I wished for a lighter tone on occasion, to take away the inherent sadness that permeated the story turned fairy-tale turned story again. Francesca and Robert must make a painful choice, one of great sorrow and heartache that they will have to live with and abide by the rest of their days. The story was told to the author by Francesca's two children after Francesca's death. After reading her journals, looking at pieces of her life Francesca kept in a manila envelope and finally realizing the depth of what their mother had to say, Michael and Carolyn decide that this is a story that very much needs to be told. It is the Romeo and Juliet of the 20th century, two star-crossed lovers torn by family and love, separated by miles of responsibility and heart ache, words waiting to be heard. Francesca and Robert come to represent that part of us that lives for what we know we want, what we know we must have, and what a very few of us ever really find.
Rating:
Summary: Sad
Review: This is a book you either love or hate! There's no inbetween. It's a beautiful love story about a short affair between a stranger and a lonely married Italian woman who fines herself alone while her family attend a fair. The stranger stops for directions and from that moment, a whirlwind love affair occurs. Don't be fooled by the title into thinking the book is a detailed description of our countries bridges. The stranger who is a photographer, is taking photographs of local bridges for a magazine which is why he's in the area and thus the title of the book. I'm not usually one for sloppy romance novels but in this case, I found this book to be a caring and loving account of two people in deep love and having to part company. It's very sad. I recommend it. It's much better than the movie of the same name.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Guilty Pleasure
Review: I found this book to be both as good and as bad as its reputation. I suppose that it is just a romance novel (I wouldn't know), but the protagonists and the setting are so wonderfully drawn as to make it more than worthwhile. Waller brings real empathy to the loneliness with which they lead their lives, and when they find each other he makes their desperate love real. What he doesn't bring, unfortunately, is a consistent feel for the English language. His prose is often quite amateurish, and many of his best scenes are sabotaged by truly awful sentences. I'm not surprised that the movie was so much better, since it *is* a great story, and movie directors get to call rewrite when confronted with ridiculous dialogue. Too bad the publisher didn't do that.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Breathtaking
Review: I picked this novel up at a local dollar tree for ...!!! U know I had to pick it up. Anyway, I read through this novel in no time, being that it is so easy to comprehend and read. The novel's entertainment level ws very low at the beginning, but as the story progressed, so did the entertainment level. The age of Francesca, and Robert turned me away from the novel, slightly, being that im only 18 but I had to make do. The novel, to me, seemed almost unreal. It is almost impossible to believe Francesca would have done what she did, being that she is a wife, mother, and country dweller ( the situation she was put in does not happen everyday.) Also, Francesca's attitude towards someone she barely knew was unbelievable. Lets just say, love at first sight was shown in The Bridges Of Madison county. You can either view this novel in one way, with it being cheasy novel about a one time fling, that was rediculous and out of line. Or, you can view this novel as unique, touching, and breathtaking. Take your pick.
Rating: 
Summary: revolting
Review: I picked up Bridges because of all the hype surrounding it and ended up throwing it against a wall. The writing is sappy, cliched and straight out of Freshman English 101. It also defied logic. Bridges is a shinning example of the power of publicity. I was very, very disappointed.
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