Rating: 
Summary: A TIMELESS CLASSIC...
Review: I first read this book when I was in junior high school. I admit that, at the time, I did not appreciate the strengths of the book and the quality of its writing. I am quite glad that I decided to give it another chance, as I now understand why it is considered to be a classic in literature. It is simply a beautifully written book, covering many of the themes that one stumbles across in life and coalescing them into a work of extraordinary breadth.The book is the story of two young people, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda. They meet for the first time when Jim is ten years old and Antonia is fourteen. Recently orphaned, Jim has moved to the Great Prairie to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Antonia, on the other hand, has been wrenched from her homeland in Bohemia, emigrating with her parents to the United States and finding herself in Nebraska. Jim and Antonia's chance encounter on a train sets the stage for the forging of a friendship and unconditional love that time will not diminish. The book relates the harshness of immigrant life through the eyes of Jim, who narrates the events contained in the book. There is a relentless stoicism about the book, which is written in spare, clear prose. With intense imagery and descriptive exactitude, late nineteenth century Nebraska comes to life. It also relates the paths that each of the characters choose to follow, as well as the vicissitudes of life that mold and shape them in ways that no one would have imagined. The focus of the book, which is also a coming of age tale, seems to be on the female characters and their strengths. Consequently, the book has a faintly feminist undercurrent to it, as all the women in it seem to be survivors, despite the hardships that they encounter. This is, without a doubt, a life affirming book, wrought with great feeling and a decided sense of time and place. Yet, despite its poignancy, the book is surprisingly unsentimental and straightforward. It is a testament to the author's literary talent that this book has emerged as a timeless classic. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and flowing like the wind on the prairie.
Review: I'm not sure that those who read for action could appreciate the gentleness of this great work. It's to be savored in its moving descriptions of landscape and character. Fast reading in order to consume quickly will not do this book justice. I tend to do that at times and was forced to slow the pace which taught me something about patience. The characters are memorable and their circumstances do have parallels in our modern world as I recently dealt with someone who was moving off an island in a river where life is fairly primitive to town and a more complex way of life. Cather's work shows us that pioneering was not a glamorous life and there is no romantasizing the real life and death struggle in a new untested land. This great work is truly one of the best of American fiction and one of the best books I've ever read. Do they MAKE kids read this for school? Gee, I hope not. They'll hate it for all times when it deserves such love, awe and respect. Buy it, read it and be transported-no, transfigured.
Rating: 
Summary: review of My Antonia
Review: I personally found this book to be very good. I really enjoyed the elaborate descriptions given by Willa Cather that allow you to feel a part of the story yourself. She paints a vivid sketch of the old Nebraska terrain in her text as she describes the assimilation of an immigrant family into western culture. In doing this she explains the roles each of the characters takes on as the immigrant family settles in and tries to begin a new life. These characters mainly include Antonia, Jim, and their families. The relationship between Jim and Antonia through each stage of their lives serves as the focus of the novel, starting from when they both arrive at the train station and ride off into the night heading towards their new homes and ending with Jim's return visit to Nebraska as an adult. It is a very readable book with captivating descriptions and an easy to follow plot, which makes it a quick and pleasant read.---Nicole Fisher (Minneapolis, MN)
Rating: 
Summary: uhhhhhhh
Review: I'm a sophomore in high school and am currenty reading this book for AP Language and Composition. It's very slow reading, but has some good themes and ideas. The characters are kind-of boring, but I can get along. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a historical fiction-type novel with many diverse characters and some interesting themes.
Rating:
Summary: My Antonia
Review: My Antonia is a book that is written in a rather quiet, not overly exciting manner while avoiding the extreme dullness that many books of this type (sappy love stories) display. This great novel is based on one boy/man (Jim) and his thoughts and memories that revolve around "his" Antonia. Antonia is a hard working farm-girl who is friends with Jim, and they always seem to find each other after one or the other moves along, either by choice or by situation. Taking place mostly in the still undeveloped western expanse of yesteryear, much attention is given to the lives and hardships of farmers and immigrants alike. Despite all of the hard times that the characters go through, they always manage to stick together and/or find each other and be able to reminisce about previous times with each other. This is a well-written book that has the ability to find the heart in anyone, no matter what their testosterone level!
Rating:
Summary: A sense of community
Review: The writing is timeless. One reads Willa Cather with confidence that she has shaped the novel for her audience. The introduction is the beginning of a fictitious memoir Cather has produced for this story. Having an introduction lends verisimilitude. It is a device for Jim Burden, now a railroad lawyer, to tell the story. He had first heard of Antonia during his initial journey to Nebraska.
Jim Burden and his grandparents lived in a wooden house. Everyone else lived in sod houses or dugouts--not very roomy. The Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, lived in a cave in the beginning. Jim and Antonia Shimerda liked to go to the prairie dog town to watch them and to watch the owls. After a time Mr. Shimerda, a sensitive, cultured person, discovered a pair of Russians in the farming community. He made friends with them since they were able to speak with each other.
Once Jim and Antonia encountered a large snake and Antonia said that Jim was brave because he killed the snake with a spade. Then one of the Russians died and the other one moved away. The lives of the children centered on their need for warmth and food. Jim felt his life was as adventurous as that of the family in THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, a book he read to his grandmother while she worked.
In December Jim and the hired man and his grandmother visited the Shimerdas. As suspected, they were in terrible want. Mr. Shimerda died in January. Men sent for the coroner in Black Hawk, and eventually he was buried at the corner of his own property. Years later when the red grass had almost disappeared from the prairie, Mr. Shimerda's grave was still visible on the land.
By spring the Shimerdas were in their new log house. Hard work changed Antonia. She felt that she could not go to school, that she needed to work. When July came around, Kansas and Nebraska were filled with breathless, brilliant heat and Antonia and her brother worked with Jim's grandparents on the wheat harvest and on other tasks.
Jim had been living with his grandparents for three years when they decided to move to Black Hawk. The Burdens's neighbor in Black Hawk hired Antonia as their servant. The neighbor, Mrs. Haring, played the piano and did a great deal to entertain the youth of the town. A phrase used in the novel has winter coming down savagely on the little town on the prairie. Tony told stories of Bohemia and the countryside to the Haring children.
In the spring a dancing tent arrived in the town. Young men belonged to something called the Progressive Euchre Club. Country girls worked in town to help their immigrant farm families. The foreign girls were deemed a menace to the social order. Antonia suffered the indignity of a failed relationship to a scoundrel and was eventually redeemed through marriage to a good person. Twenty years later Jim is able to visit the vibrant family.
Rating:
Summary: Surprised
Review: I am always surprised when such a classic novel disappoints me since it happens so rarely. Cather's ability to describe scene is excellent. I am not familiar with many of the plants she describes, so some of the description is lost on me, but this is a small quibble. The characterizations are the problem. The narrator, Jim Burden, borders on being a complete person, but does not quite get there. It would have been better to either use him as a device or to make him a fully developed character. As it is, there is too much left to explain. For example, why does Burden fall in love with Antonia but then do nothing about it? If his heart is in Nebraska, why does he leave? These questions may be answerable, but they are left unresolved. The other characters are also flat, probably due to the lack of dialogue. I find it hard to focus on continuous descriptive narrative, though this may just be the style of the period. In spite of all I've said, the novel does make an impact, so I've given it three stars.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Your Time
Review: In the book My Antonia, Jim Burden gives an account of his life as he grows up in the prairies of Nebraska. You follow him through his friendship with his Bohemian friend named Antonia who he cares for dearly. As they both move forward in life the friends are forced to go their separate ways. But somehow they always keep a strange connection.
I feel that My Antonia is a very well written book. Though it is not my favorite novel, I am glad that I read it. If you enjoy love stories or stories set in the pioneer times, this will be a good book for you. There is a great amount of detail about the hardships the people of this time had to deal with, making it very interesting. You also see a conection between people on a different level.
Rating:
Summary: Jim Burden's Story
Review: Rural Nebraska came alive through the characters of Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda. This was the first Willa Cather book read by anyone in our Family Book Club, and I speak for all of us when I say we really enjoyed this book. Cather has a way of pulling you right into the story from the first words, and she brilliantly wove anecdotes and mini-stories into the tale of two young people growing up. The version of the book we read contained two introductions: the original introduction which had been placed at the end of the book and an introduction Cather wrote later. Our Book Club was divided; personally, I liked the re-write of the introduction better. But it was intriguing to see them both in such a way.
Read My Antonia, and the next time you are driving through the country, past the red grass and into the rattlesnake plains, you, too, will remember Mr. Shimerda at the crossroads. And maybe also you will recall the thrasher story, the wedding couple and the wolves, and Mrs. Shimerda's secret cow.
My Antonia is the sort of story that you feel sad to put down, as if the characters you've known are real people and you are forced to say good-bye to people you care about.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible
Review: The narration for this book is by some monotone robot voice that is at once annoying, incomprehensible, and distracting. They should use a human being next time. Additionally, the sound constantly glitches and skips. I returned this item. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
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