Mad City: A Novel

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Summary: Hated It!
Review: I kept waiting for the plot to take off and go somewhere. I could not make myself like the protagonist or anything about the book

Rating:
Summary: I didn't think I liked the book...that was 4 weeks ago.
Review: As I read the book, I found myself waiting for something to happen--exciting, disturbing, it didn't matter, I just wanted to feel like the story was going somewhere. It never did. I finished the book feeling disappointed. However, I find I'm still thinking about the story...perhaps it did go somewhere afterall

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Summary: I can't wait to read more from Ms. Hamilton
Review: A Map of the World, I believe, was Ms. Hamilton's second book, and it was out and visible at bookstores. After reading it, and loving it, I discovered her first book, The Book of Ruth. I read it and loved it also. I was surprised to all of the sudden see it out and visible. I will read everything Ms. Hamilton writes. Yes, she is a dark one, but stirs emotions like crazy. I think the reason for the delay in publicity for "Ruth" is that somehow A Map of the World got more publicity, and after people read it, they looked for other books by Ms. Hamilton. I hope she's busy writing right now

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Summary: The Book of Ruth: Understanding too much.
Review: The Book of Ruth is a study in the kind of life nobody wants to live. It's a lesson in the dangers of empathy and the seductiveness of the familiar. Why don't people, parti cularly women, leave lives that abuse them? Because some times the very dysfunctional family has tiny elements of the very functional. And, tiny though they may be, they become huge in their relativity. Ruth thinks she is retarded. Her mother said so. She is without a sense of her self except as a character in the lives of those around her. She doesn't even get to be called by her name until late in the book when she is ob jectively discussed by others. Her only route to actuali zation, to existence, is through her relationships. Ruth's not retarded. On the contrary. She knows too much. Feels too much. And her empathy leads her to allowing a lattitude for insanity in others that nearly kills her. Her mother, May, destroys Ruth emotionally and intellec tually. Yet the feeling reader has to respond to the pathos of May's own sorry history. Ruth's husband Ruby has rotten teeth and smells, but he has one great redemption. He loves her. He can be anything, just short of murderer, but if he loves her it is enough. He is horrible, but he is wonder- ful in his love. And it's not his fault. Because some things really could "make you want to stab, and stab, and stab." Ruth feels responsibility for everyone, but makes no one take responsibility for themselves. She works over- time to maintain her own sanity, yet allows insanity in others because they came by it honestly. She asks for so very little. She gets virtually nothing. That's what she's learned to expect. We can hold her responsible and disdain her. Or recognize that her foolishness is borne of her vision: She can look back and understand far too well. The present is too gripping, the future to unpromising, to put her focus on either of those. But a painful past she under stands. Poor Ruth. She is the saddest of literary charac ters...And she comes by it honestly.

Rating:
Summary: foreboding feeling
Review: As I read this book, I always had foreboding feelings. Something wasn't right. You know the other shoe is going to fall. Even in the happy times, Ruth's skill as bowler, her marriage, her happier relationship with her mother; you know it want last

Rating:
Summary: Too sad for me
Review: I really liked the style of writing but the story was way too depressing for me.

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Summary: frighteningly familiar contents
Review: The characters of the book reveal the answers to many questions we have when familial tragedies occur. The obvious and hidden tensions that exist in families are the cornerstone of this plot and the ending becomes ever more clear as the characters develop and grow. Parts of the book force reflection and reveal bits of sadness that touch the reader who may have frineds and/or family who fit the characters. This book was a joy and a trouble at the same time. armena andrania

Rating:
Summary: The Book of Ruth by: Jane Hamilton
Review: This was an excellent novel of the dark side to each one of us. The food and bird imagery is not to be ignored. This is a must read for the person who loves an all American novel.

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Summary: Great book! Just finished...
Review: This book was absolutely fantastic. I'm working my way through Oprah's book list and I haven't been disappointed yet! I put this one near the top, though. The narrator is so likeable, such an "everyman" despite her many faults and "lack of intelligence," that the reader can't help but sympathize. You get to know this character closely and personally, and because of that, the story draws you in, almost in a Holden Caulfield kind of way. The END is shockingly surprising and unexpected, but makes sense, and leaves the reader rooting for Ruth, even in the very end.

Rating:
Summary: The Book of Ruth
Review: A really warped book. It was interesting, but I did not like the end. It tells of a young girl's stuggle in a poor and dysfunctional family. How she tried to gain independence and fell in love. Her husband was strange and in the end was even stranger! A bit too morbid and violent for me.