Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read for Teens
Review: I thought Ordinary People was an excellent book telling of a teenager's recovery from attempted suicide. It was a great book dealing with many topics like suicide, drinking, sibling death, and not getting along with a parent. A really, really good book!
Rating: 
Summary: Every high-schooler should read and appreciate this book.
Review: Judith Guest's first novel is an amazing tale
of a teen's recovery from suicide, and the
demons he must overcome to survive. Wonderful
character development and a page-turning plot
make Ordinary People a modern American
classic. The film won several Oscars in
1980, and the novel surpasses it in every way.
Every high-school boy (and girl for that matter)
should read Ordinary People and learn from the
Jarretts' struggle with themselves and each other.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It tells the hardship of a high school student in the worst of times. I really thought everyone should read it.
Rating:
Summary: Real
Review: Every person, any age can find some way to relate to this book. As a teenager riding the waves of adolescence this book hit home incredibly hard. To quote guest: "Nobodies role is simple these days. Not even a kid's. It used to mean minding your manners, respecting those who were bigger that you, treating each day as a suprise package waiting to be opened. Not any more. What's changed? Not enough suprises? Too many, maybe."
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Good Depth
Review: This was a very absorbing book, with an appealing, thought-provoking style to the language. The depth of the characters was carefully crafted. The random images and memories that slowly emerge as the book progresses kept me reading, and the structure of how Guest brings this out parallels the psychological growth of Conrad perfectly. The mother, in her cold and uncompromising psychology, was the most fascinating of all the characters.
Rating:
Summary: In reading it, one finds nothing to criticize or regret.
Review: Almost 20 years after its publication, Judith Guest's wonderful first novel retains all of its power and readability. The Jarrett's are an American family. We can know them, because we do know them. Whether they are next door or within our own domiciles, we find these "ordinary people" heartbreakingly familiar. And the tragedies which this family must face are indeed the tragedies of so many of our own lives: untimely death, teenage suicide, social isolation, and divorce. This compelling novel remains a quiet joy for those fortunate enough to discover it.
Rating:
Summary: What are Ordinary People
Review: I believe the book Ordinary People give you a sense that you are an ordinary person. I believe there is a stereo type of an ordinary person. I think this book enlightens your view of the challenges of life as a person. Also enlightens your view of the challenges of a teen in society. Everyone looses a loved one and this gives you a glimpse of what the effects could be and how it is to overcome something very difficult.
Rating:
Summary: Ordinary People?
Review: What are Ordinary People? This book shows the obsticals of life. Everyone in life experiences the loss of a loved one, one time or another. Ordinary People shows the way the loss can effect someone. Ordinary People also shows a typical family life to be not so typical. Ordinary People hit real close to home and my heart. I guess that is why I feel this book is #1. I find it to show the way life makes all of us unordinary, or ordinary if you look at another way.
Rating:
Summary: Interested in Greeley
Review: As a Highschool student I'm puzzled at this builgnsroman genera book due to the suprising maturity level that is needed to fully understand the novel to it's fullest. It has been brought to my attention by a teacher at my school that children as young as middleschool (8th and 9th grade)are reading this novel all accross America. I'm the last to think of banning a book, or to make decision's for interested young readers. At the same time, I was shocked at many idea's, settings, and language that are in my mind not suited for 13 and 14 year olds. Let these students reach the maturity level needed in thier own time,not make them rush into it.
Rating:
Summary: An important novel for young people growing toward adulthood
Review: As a 27-year English teacher, I find "Ordinary People to be a highly thought provoking novel which has a strong impact on young readers. It's "tough stuff," not a particularly easy read, both because of its style and its content. But it grabs its readers in the way good lit should: the characters matter to us, we care what happens to them, and we can see bits of ourselves in all of them. So many "teen problems" books take the easy way out, sentimentalizing the serious. OP never does that! Does it glorify suicide (the censors' simple response)? Of course not! Who, in any frame of mind, would want to go through the hell Conrad does? What it DOES say is that there are ways to work one's way through the deepest pain without suicide. That's a critical message to today's teens.
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