Rating: 
Summary: Wondering
Review: I really was wondering what the hub-bub was all about concerning this book. I had heard friends talking about it and found all the very different reviews here to be intriguing.
I bought the book.
My thoughts?
Well, I have to say that the unfavorable reviews, unfortunately, are closest to the mark when you get down to it. I guess I should have known. All the best reviews made her sound a little too good, in the end. And many of the harsher reviews were pretty honest in their tone (with the exception of a few).
Honestly, I wanted to like this book, but the stuff just isn't inspiring. In fact, my wife liked it even less than I did (I was worried about all the male-bashing that has been on the reviews, so I got her feedback to see if I was really off base).
I wish all of you the best.
Rating: 
Summary: So-so
Review: I've spent a life of hard work and living so I can retire and enjoy the fine things in life. But so much of what I thought was out there to reward me with the arts is so far from the real world I know that I am let down time and again. This book came with a lot of mixed reviews so I thought something controversial might be between the covers. Sadly I found more of the same---poetry from someone who has spent too much time in the world of the academy to know the real trials of the heart. I'm sorry to report this, but it is really the way I feel.
Rating:
Summary: So-so
Review: I've spent a life of hard work and living so I can retire and enjoy the fine things in life. But so much of what I thought was out there to reward me with the arts is so far from the real world I know that I am let down time and again. This book came with a lot of mixed reviews so I thought something controversial might be between the covers. Sadly I found more of the same---poetry from someone who has spent too much time in the world of the academy to know the real trials of the heart. I'm sorry to report this, but it is really the way I feel.
Rating: 
Summary: Keenly intelligent , insightful and witty poems
Review: Ms. Fennelly's work represents everything I want from poetry. It touches my mind with immediate recognition and my soul with its' genius and my heart with aches of pleasure and pain in the mutually shared experiences of life. Her images are succinct, apt, and, frequently, very funny. And, on top of it all, I can understand everything she's talking about.
Rating:
Summary: Kudos, Mr. Ward!
Review: Oh my goodness! I felt the need to reply to one reviewer in particular, Mr. Ward. Of course I agree, as does any sane person, that the world is about to be overtaken by poetry and that something must be done about it... there is simply too much poetry everywhere! Everywhere I go, every person on the bus is clutching a volume of poetry ground out by the evil forces of that sinister organization the poetry mill. And of course I concur that if anyone should have the final say about women's literary explorations of their own bodies, it should be Mr. Ward. I do not know Mr. Ward, of course, but I am quite sure that where women's bodies are concerned he is the man to see! Lastly, he is quite correct that poetry should fulfill a strict set of socially uplifting guidelines, and address these weighty topics with the bone-dry correctness of a tenth grade algebra paper. If all this says poetry to you, as it does to me and Mr. Ward, please stay away from Fennelly's troubling book which, it turns out, is nothing like a tenth grade algebra paper, is not as uplifting as NBC's "The More You Know" campaign, and threatens to drown us all in a flood of brilliant and bloody imagery - the likes of which we have come, so wisely, to take for granted in our poetry-obsessed nation. And most importantly of all, Fennelly does us the great disservice of talking about her own body and her own child in a completely new, raw and startling way that bears little resemblence to that wonderful old comic strip "The Family Circus," which is, I suspect, the mighty standard to which Mr. Ward rightfully compares Fennelly's unfortunate soul. But I ask you: Who could measure up to that? Perhaps only Jerry Ward himself, if his masterful review is any indication! I might only request, as a parting wish, that Mr. Ward consider binding some of his reviews in volume form. This, ironically, may bring about the new dawn of literature for which he pines.
Rating:
Summary: back to business
Review: Please ignore all the reviews beginning with Jerry Ward's, and read this book for what it is: a treasure. Ms. Fennelly doesn't write only about her body but about the complicated idea of motherhood, the heartbreak of miscarriage, the teaching and writing of poetry, and many, many more things. I did some looking and discovered that her editor at Norton is the editor of Andrea Barrett, Pam Houston, Ron Carlson, and many other fine writers. That Ms. Fennelly, at quite a young age, is publishing with a New York house, one of the very best, possibly has other poets a little jealous. But please, all of you, stop using this poet and her book as a reason to exchange potshots. And I dare any readers out there to find a better book.
Rating:
Summary: What a read!!!
Review: Tender Hooks (as well as Fennelly's Open House) are amazing poems. Tender Hooks brings to print many things that mothers have experienced. The feelings and emotions that Fennelly wries about might only be truly understood by mothers, but can be appreciated by all (except Mr. Ward). An absolutely wonderful book! It is also a great gift to give expecting mothers!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Book
Review: This is one of the smartest, most accomplished books I've read in a long time. Formally interesting and emotionally mature, the poems have stuck with me every since I read them the first time a few weeks back, and reread them this week--wonderfully compelling in their musicality and range.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed!
Review: Well, listen to those people who rave about this book if you want to, but I read the poems with a poetry reading group and most of us just didn't like her stuff. I can see how some people might connect with it, but it's pretty boring if you ask me. I'd like to unload my copy---pretty cheap, in fact.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Have
Review: What happened here? Fennelly's debut collection of poetry was one of the best collections I have read. It was really phenomenal, so when I heard that her new collection came out, I got very excited and ran out and bought it. Then I read it. This is really a bad book. The language is flat. It is syrupy. And I know children are a joy, but for crying out loud, find a new topic. It's not that they were pretty much all (with one or two exceptions) motherhood poems, it's that they were bad motherhood poems. No, avoid this book and go grab Open Houses if you don't already have it. This collection is really a disappointment.
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