Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating, helpful epic survey of the American family
Review: If your family is perfect in every way, you don't need this book. Everyone else is sure to find something important and helpful in this epic survey of the American family. Had it been fiction, you'd have to compare it to a novel that takes on American culture, religion and history, with humor, an intriguing plot and some fascinating characters-you know, a book like THE ROAR OF THE HUNTIDS. (Hey, I know my recent novel isn't as famous as WAR AND PEACE, but for some reason it comes to mind.) JOINED AT THE HEART includes real-life stories about families who overcame problems, with vivid word portraits supplemented by photos. Consequently, reading the book feels like thumbing through your family photo album except that, frankly, the snapshots are better. And you can't help noticing that your family has become more diverse than usual. After each family's story, its main problem is put in a social, economic or historical context, followed by lively commentaries that sum up the latest knowledge from top historians, psychology experts, and so forth. Sometimes there also are anecdotes from the authors, such as Tipper Gore's hilarious menopause story. Altogether, I found the writing impressive: deceptively simple, with an enormous amount of knowledge made readable. (Remember, Gore was a journalist before he turned to politics. Fellow writers, you could get your money's worth from this book based on its style alone. I relished the graceful, flawless transitions, paragraph after paragraph. My next transition, I'll warn you, isn't one.) As a reader, as well as a book reviewer, there's one form of hypocrisy that I find completely baffling. Why are so many alleged literary authorities disdainful of self-help books? Isn't one of the highest purposes of reading to learn how to make your life better? So how come all other types of non-fiction are categorically presumed to have superior merit? Here in D.C., our WASHINGTON POST won't review a self-helper at all, unless its a mega bestseller; then, in the guise of a book review, the POST will deign to rip it to shreds. If it weren't for the self-help stigma, JOINED AT THE HEART might have been angled more as a self-help book. Tipper's skill as a psychologist shines through these pages anyway. And any reader whose family life isn't perfect should have no difficulty with finding practical insights. Personally, I found many ideas that will make me a better wife and mother. My Aha! bell kept clanging away. American families, like our society and world, are joined whether we like it or not. Are we going to hobble through life together like members of a chain gang? This magnificent book by the Gores could help us all learn a better way -- to walk through life with dignity and joy, remembering that we can be joined at the heart.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow - the most intellectually stimulating read ever
Review: That was sarcasm... I read through a little more than half this book when one thing became clear - Mr. Gore wrote this book not for the message, but for the face time it would get him in trying to make another run for the White House. There are a number of good books available about the family. I suggest you get one of them rather than this one. I swear, the five star reviews shown here were authored by Al or Tipper.
Rating:
Summary: Al and Tipper Gore have a dysfunctional family
Review: The book is stiff, and a very difficult read. Al and Tipper Gore are in no position to write a book about family values. As we learned in the 2000 campaign, they have two daughters and the daughters were mentioned so often. The Gores never mentioned Al Junior (Al III), a very troubled young man they tried to keep out of the public eye. Al Junior has been enrolled in, and kicked out of several private boarding schools. Their son is raised by other people. The only thing heard about Al Junior was his growing rap sheet and his brushes with the law. If the Gores are so interested in family values, why not start with their own troubled son?
Of the two daughters, Kerinna (spelling might be wrong) managed the 2000 campaign for her father. She is now married, with her own children, but she now lives with her parents, away from her own family. Who is raising her children? A married daughter living with her parents is an example of family values? The Gore family is completely dysfunctional and they should try to repair their own damaged family before they try to write a book about family values.
Rating:
Summary: A Breath of Fresh Air!
Review: Well organized and inspiring. Al and Tipper highlight the complexity of the issues facing Americans through the lives of real people. They show great sensitivity to the needs of families, the bedrock of our society, and highlight the ways that changes in society at large (longer work hours, a failing economy, rising costs of health care, etc.) impact the character of our country. An excellent, thoughtful, and refreshing read in these difficult times.
Rating:
Summary: A Genuine Confession To What Is Important In Life!
Review: I read the book and upon careful heart searching reflection I believe the presidential loss actually improved Al Gore with the support of his wife as seen in the book. Together they are outlining what Newt Gingrich has been saying too. American needs strong policies that support families and not promote single households if we are to have a bright future. Families do better together with two adults not one and children educational needs are for the parents to decide by choice not forced failed policies. I was able to recall the many precepts I learned when I was young due to this book. Man and woman from the beginning of time had a duty of building a home and rearing a family. The dominion of the spirit of marriage is a divine institution in which man and woman live a true and complete life. They are one entity sharing the ecstasy and burdens of existence. In spite of the pangs of travail in birth, the longing for motherhood remains the most powerful instinct in woman and man's need for a family is what makes him fruitful in life. I really respect the Gores for writing this book. They have traveled far and wide over this nation during campaigns and have come to know the problems facing American families. It is quite apparent they have seen the problems but just as clear they have little answers too. But who does except the families themselves and this should not discount the book objectives and goals. I believe I did come across a renewed Al Gore coming from the ashes of a bruising close loss of the election. I never understood why Al failed to stand up for political honesty. The famous claim, "I Invented The Internet," needed only to be refuted by just saying, I was in Congress when the Internet Research Funding came up and I had the vision to vote for it and it exceeded my own expectations! This is what the electorate understands with no disrespect to this devoted public servant. Moreover, his failure to capture his own state let alone Florida tells me he simply did not look closely at the issues that American families need for self-defense, self-support and self-promotion. Clinton/Gore policies on gun control, higher taxes and social health care simply were not well thought out or intellectually honest in content. It is easy to see why he lost in an economic downturn of their own making as the election drew nearer. He needs to rethink these issues like he and Tipper have looked closely at our families. Al and Tipper have to realize American families can make many decisions on their own as from the start of our nations roots and assemble in this book. America families do best when they can work for themselves and keep most of what they earn and not collectivist redistribution of wealth that burdens each family with more taxes and fees every year. The candidates for leadership need the mercy of electorate to forgive the passing of policies that need repealed for the infinitely greater good for our families in the end. Still, the books' uplifting collection of factual narratives and mirror images captures the bliss, adversity and poignant tussles of family life. The Gores are attempting to inform America that there is only one kind of family among 12 special families. It is composed of any group of people supporting each other with unconditional love in triumphs over heartaches. The Gores are pointing out the children of any nation are the builders of the future from the values taught by their family and friends from families. This call to rich and poor alike to participate in the blessings of this new era by coming to the source, which is the family. I trust Al Gore more these days due to his failure to stand up for plain American principles of individual rights, loyalty to one's wife, and the ability to admit mistakes. We know an intelligent child cannot help now and then to detect a fault to laugh at, bit instead of mockery, it is better such a child is taught it is for him to throw the mantle of filial love over the fault. If he simply quit he would be like a flask of fragrance that is sealed and stored away. Instead Al & Tipper have open themselves up to both praise and ridicule. The book is like opening the flask of sweet odors. We now can smell the learning they share with us to be widely diffused for all. Al Gore is a good man; he needs to keep speaking more freely now without political pollsters telling him what poetical pundits want to hear for good media purposes. Al Gore just needs to be himself because he is just fine being that way as seen between the lines in this grand book. There is no question Al and Tipper came from and have created a good family too.
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Summary: I'm glad it was a gift...not worth the money.
Review: I read the book with an open mind, but in the end, I could not escape the conclusion that politicians do not make the best sociologists. As for organization and logical presentation of materials - It was not stellar and there was way too much political drivel and platform pushing to really qualify the book as a resource about family. On a side note, I was surprised to learn that a book claiming to be an all encompassing book about family did not refer to, quote or use any information from Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family. Seems he meets all the requirements as an expert on the family. The book was just too political for my leisure time reading.
Rating:
Summary: A second-rate book
Review: I just finished reading this book. It is about 4990 on the Amazon sales list for good reason. Although I want to assume the best in an author's desire to cogently express a point of view, this waste of paper (my God, they have another book that I hear is just as poorly conceived, out simultaneously with this one!)cements Al Gore and Tipper as nothing more than political opportunists trying to manuever their political ship into a congenial harbor.
Those that believe Al Gore no matter what may like it, most everyone else will gift this book to some relative they dislike for Christmas. To think, all of the trees that were killed by BIG PUBLISHERS to print this....where are the environmentalists when you need them?
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Summary: comforting and stabilizing
Review: I found comfort in the fact that someone so knowledable and intelligent can see the challenges that the American family faces today. I was beginning to think no one notices or cares.
It is a heavy burden we are all bearing and this book gives us credit, recognition and hope.
Rating: 
Summary: Wanted to see what all the fuss was about
Review: After reading such widely-divergent reviews, I had to see what was really "stirring the pot" here. The book was curiously disappointing; I kept hoping for more substance, something more than easy platitudes about what the American family means. Is this the place that the family-oriented Mr. and Mrs. Gore have come in their lives, a place where there are no fresh ideas or solutions? While some of the descriptions were intended to be and did appear tender, I was bothered by the selectivity, thinking of the families whose stories weren't represented here. (Actually, I was more impressed by the sincerity of the Tipper Gore who stood up to big record companies in the name of family values to stop profane and violent lyrics, than the one who co-wrote this book.) Unfortunately, this effort seems to straddle between being for family values and an apologia for those who would erode the standards that "family values" require. I didn't hate it, but it didn't engage me either.
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Summary: The grass is greener on the Cosby Show, too
Review: Al Gore and his fawning wife aim to create a portrait of the family as a way of establishing his street cred should he decide to (hopefully, for the benefit of his Republican benefactors) run for president again. Simply put the book is a naive, sentimental and sentenetious ode to piousness. The piousness to which I allude here is not piousness in the religious sense, but rather piousness to Democrats' ideals: equality, egalitarianism, sentiment, romance, et cetera. While his views on homosexuals are admirable and slightly interesting, so much of his words are strained and so much of his prose is calculated that the book ought not be called 'Joined At the Heart', but, rather, ought to be a play on Jack Welch's 'Straight from the Gut': 'Straight from a Political Consultant.' If you have ever heard a spin doctor try to contextualize a flippant remark made by a politician (think Ari Fleischer covering up for a gaffe by Paul O'Neill) you will have an idea of the mess that is this book. It tries to appease every constituency except that of the far right and offend none and in doing so devolves into a depressing mediocrity that is at the abject center of Democrats' listlessness in recent elections. Save yourself the money and buy a book by Dr. Seuss if you want insight into the nature of the world.
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