Rating: 
Summary: BORING!
Review: So I've tried to read this book so many times, but every time I pick it up, I can only read a few pages. VERY BORING! I wonder how the movie is going to turn out.
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining, but irritating
Review: I found the story of this book, and some of Johnson's observations, fascinating, mainly because I'm interested in reading about French culture. But I agree with some of the other reviewers (including the male who incorrectly thinks all women love this book) that the book had a lot of irritating faults. Most of the characters were treated superficially, especially the French people. (Is every French person really that interested in cheese?) I also thought the writing was pretentious (the narrator Isabel uses phrases like, "is that not why a person moves to France?") and awkward. Hints of future catastrophe were dropped in at ineffective times, and the book's shifts in point of view were off-balance: 98% of the story is told from Isabel's perspective, but a very few pages suddenly switch to someone else's head. The flurry of crimes at the end was unbelievable--they seemed like a last-ditch attempt to appeal to a wide audience--but weren't explained enough to satisfy crime-story readers. I probably could have excused these problems if I had enjoyed the characters more, but Johnson seems to be a closet misanthrope: all the characters come off as selfish and narcissistic. The narrator makes biting comments about everybody, including her adored lover, whose attractions I couldn't fathom. I also wish that Isabel had investigated the French point of view further, rather than just observing and reciting the things she saw and heard, and deciding she'd never understand them. Although Isabel makes plenty of negative generalizations about Americans, the author seems to stack the deck against the French. For example, much of the French dialogue is translated (if it's translated at all--I don't know why the publisher didn't add a glossary) literally. Johnson probably wanted to emphasize Isabel's limited understanding of French, and her feeling of foreignness, but this approach makes the French characters seem like people who don't know how to speak intelligibly. In spite of all my objections, however, I could not put the book down, and read it in two days. So there must be something good about it.
Rating:
Summary: I must have missed something...
Review: It's always difficult for me to enjoy a book if I get the feeling that I wouldn't like the main characters if I knew them in real life, and that's exactly how I felt about "Le Divorce..." I bought it last year but could never read more than a few pages at a time, but then with the movie coming out, I figured I should try again. The descriptions of Paris and the changing of the seasons were wonderfully done, but the characters left me completely cold. The two sisters never took any steps on their own behalf-- they let situations control them in the most irritating fashion without ever becoming proactive. I'm curious to see if the movie rounds out the characters of the two women, or leaves them as flat and featureless as Diane Johnson did. With any luck, it will be one of those few times a movie was better than the book on which it was based.
Rating:
Summary: How about an annullment instead?
Review: The story is disconnected and stuffed with odd characters. It is somewhat of a sad story that the author is trying to make light of but systematically missing every opportunity for accomplishing that goal. I never understood why a young attractive college student from California seeks to sleep with a 70-yr old man (Uncle Edgar)or what is at stake for her in the relationship. She claims to be in love with him but sleeps around with a couple of guys who are quickly mentioned. Her sister is a spoiled sniveling brat who only garners sympathy from the reader because her husband leaves her while she is pregnant. Basically, Le Divorce lacks flavor, depth, timing, and sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Kinda Stiff, in a Pompous Sort of Way
Review: This story is told in first person, but the first person is a little stiff.
Maybe she's supposed to come across as a cold-hearted, unemotional, spoiled young woman,
but that doesn't mean that all the other characters should as well. I didn't like any of
the underdeveloped characters enough to care what happened to them. It wasn't all that funny, either.
Perhaps if you spoke French or knew Paris, you might appreciate it more, as there
are a bazillion references to Parisian locales and menu items.
If there is something really redeeming about it, I guess I missed what it was. This doesn't stop me however, from wondering how the movie will turn out.
Rating:
Summary: Dreadful, plodding, uninteresting, dismal and more
Review: What's shocking is how some readers and reviewers have compared this title to famous works by authors like Henry James. They've apparently never read Henry James. Stylistically dreadful, devoid of any unclichéd ideas, witless and unwitty, Le Divorce is a major waste of time. Whatever you think of Americans and the French, they don't deserve this treatment.
Rating: 
Summary: L Étrangere
Review: It is never easy to move to another country. It can be even worse when you have a problematic pregnant sister who is getting divorce, and you can't express yourself in the language spoken in this country. Well, this could be problematic enough, wouldn't Isabel --the protagonist of this novel-- bring more problems to her life, making 'Le Divorece' an interesting book. Diane Johnson has a nice style, and the book keeps in a good peace, being funny and tragic at the same time. The characters are well developed, as long as you consider the rich people's lives--don't expect people working or doing something serious. But it is not a problem, because that's the way they can be. The French are...well, French -- in all the senses the word can have. And the relationship between the two countries' people are cordial, albeit you think there must be a hidden agenda somewhere. More than a novel about social and cultural diferences between USA and France, as one may expect, this novel is a coming-of-age story, of a girl who has to travel many miles in order to find herself. Only after arriving is Europe is Isabel total free to experiment with her life, and other people's lives so that she can find out who she really is. Not that she hadn't suspected it before... I think Diane Johnson avoids falling into traps that the theme could have lead some other less experienced writers. She is not afraid of showing how silly we can be when it comes to make a good impression on the other. A highly recommended novel.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting take on a sometimes painful topic
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ms Johnson's take on the cross-cultural takes on this subject. Her characters are definitely not predictable as they are in so many of the "hell hath no fury books" written about divorcees. I read this book to a audio backdrop of Joni Mitchell's court and spark. Great combination for creating a good reading mood.
Rating: 
Summary: We guys shouldn't try to review women's books, maybe?
Review: My main interest in this was the fact that the forthcoming movie with Naomi Watts sounded possibly promising. After reading the book, I might go to see the movie anyway, since a good screenplay and good portrayals might sharpen up the good points of the book. My first thought was that there's a phony sophistication here. There are good attempts to portray France as seen by a young American woman, and to portray Americans as the French see them. Both the American and the French perspectives seem superficial. Maybe they're supposed to be. Maybe that's one of the points of the novel. Some women's novels are good reading for us guys because they give an insight into feminine thinking. However, to me, the women in the book were shallow and the men more so. The book did seem more than rather tedious for much of the early and middle parts, and only past the 2/3 point became interesting.
In summation, it seemed to me that it was a manipulative novel about a batch of manipulative people. On the other hand, I may be a mere man who lacks understanding of the women portrayed here.
Rating:
Summary: Self-conscious and slow
Review: I picked up this book when it came out and was so unimpressed at the start that I put it down again. I recently discovered it in the bookcase and this time finished it though I don't know how. While advertised as intelligent and humorous it isn't particularly so. The characters are all ciphers -- you don't get in any of their heads. The narrator, Isabel, addresses the reader while relating her first-hand experiences, yet seems to turn all-knowing when it's convenient. There's a particularly annoying habit of foreshadowing along the lines of: "If I'd only been more XYZ, I would have seen the catastrophe coming." Some of these catastrophes turn out to be ... not so catastrophic. The ending is pat and the reactions of the characters to a true catastrophe don't feel real. One of the books where I just don't understand what anyone else sees in it.
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