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Summary: Wonderful Idea!
Review: I purchased the book on a whim because I thought the idea was interesting. The first 100 or so pages kept my attention but for some reason it dwindled from there. I still recommend the book because it was a good read and I wanted to know what would happen. It was an entertaining and quick read which almost anyone will enjoy.
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Summary: Internalize this book, please
Review: Over the years, as I read more and more, my expectations get lower. I often just hope a book will keep me entertained on the train ride home, or distract me before bed. Catherine Ryan Hyde's books continually spoil me, though, and make me miserable with everything else I read for weeks afterward.Pay It Forward is one of those stories that, like my grandmother says about her favorite books, "Just talks to you, like you're sitting right there in the room!" It's a story about normal people and their normal dreams, which, like most normal dreams, are really extraordinary when they come true. It's so wonderful to step back from a book with a lovable character and realize that the character doesn't end with the book. It's never over, because the writer -- the character's creator -- is still alive and full of ideas. The idea of paying it forward really does come from a living, thinking person, and what's better, a person with a beautiful voice that just might reach out further than she can imagine.
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Summary: Simple Story, Uplifting Message
Review: Without getting into detail about the story, which is outlined in the critical reviews above, I found that by presenting the viewpoints of various characters, the author emphasized her point by letting us see the thought processes of each person involved. It seems a very simple thing to do, to "pay forward" a good deed, and you wonder why you don't actually see more of it. Maybe we will. Despite a tragic event near the end of the story, you do come away from the book with a good feeling, which makes quite a change from the way you feel after reading a mystery involving serial killers or yet another story in which a dysfunctional family is a good excuse for any kind of destructive behavior. Reading this book made me think also of Carolyn See's THE HANDYMAN, which was another book with an uplifting story.
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Summary: A fascinating read!
Review: This is not your average tearjerker story. I finished this one in about 2 hours. You will find yourself rooting for all the characters, even the ones you don't like. An inspired idea and a great book. Grab it now before the movie comes out!
Rating:
Summary: Not A Placebo! Restore Your Faith in the Good of People...
Review: Wow! Since I read this book, I've been confined to talking only about IT! Hyde has put on paper what has thus far only been effectively expressed on film. Unlike any other American-centric author, Hyde makes her optimistic view of our country believable. What makes "Pay it Forward" very real is Hyde's acknowledgement of the errors of human beings. What makes this work truly fantastic is proof that America can be made smaller -- truly village-like -- by kindness. She doesn't ask for "random" kindness, but for good deeds to be "paid forward," not back, for other acts of kindness. Catherine Ryan Hyde shows that you, me, anyone can perform mammoth acts for others, without losing what matters; and by doing so, the reader learns, we can change the world (and thereby gain so much more). I sincerely believe that this one book, or the point that Hyde makes, can improve the nature of day-to-day relations between Americans, country-wide, city by city.
Rating:
Summary: A rare and special book that warms your heart
Review: Run, don't walk, to read "Pay It Forward" if you want a vision of hope for our sad but beautiful world. Ms. Hyde is a gifted writer who packs a punch in every delightful sentence. Be among the first to "discover" it (but not the last) - the movie will release in 2000 with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment (the boy from "The Sixth Sense") starring. And, Oprah -- pick this one, please!
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Summary: PAY IT FORWARD changed my life
Review: PAY IT FORWARD is a really awesome book! I was feeling really depressed and alone -- not connected to anyone or anything. My kids were stressing me out. A friend of mine lent me this book and said: "Pay it Forward." This kind act really supported me and once I read the book, I knew what I had to do! I wanted to help people, too. Once I began to do this, I felt better about myself -- I taught my kids, too. Now they are really into helping people and they always say: "Pay it Forward!" I highly recommend this book to anyone who's looking for inspiration in life.
Rating:
Summary: Five stars is not enough!
Review: This is absolutely the BEST book I've ever read! It will surely touch on every emotion you have. The characters became unbelievably real to me and the story is absolutely realistic. This book will touch every reader's heart and soul. I predict this to become a best seller in no time and if presented just like the book reads, it has all of the potential to become the next "Forrest Gump-ish" movie - only THIS story is completely believable. You will wish this was based on a true story - and then wish it could be! Please read the editorials and the author's comments, but trust my enthusiasm to GET THIS BOOK! I need to end this so I can read it again!
Rating: 
Summary: Twenty years of experience required
Review: PAY IT FORWARD was not the easiest of books to create. First it took twenty years of "social studies"-- looking at life and asking it questions. Then it took twice as long to write as any other novel I've written. One challenge was to create a vision of a world in which every human being has a potential effect on every other human being. Truthfully, I believe that's the world we've got. But how to make others believe it? At one point the weight was simply too great, and I found myself at a sticking point. But Reuben St Clair was a live character in my head by that time, and he wasn't about to rest until his story was told. Reuben is rightfully my protagonist, but PAY IT FORWARD has many protagonists, many stories of many lives. To achieve that interconnectedness, I felt the reader needed to bond with enough human characters to understand that this is a story about us all. Another challenge was to create a novel in which people change--realize their true potential as a society, and undertake kindness instead of violence--without it sounding corny or hard to believe. One of many approaches was to create characters who are real--flawed, scarred, imperfect, trying but not always succeeding. Most are essentially likeable, but not all. Take the gang-banger Sidney G. He turns the Pay It Forward movement loose in the gang community simply because somebody told him not to. "Nobody tells me what I can and can't touch," he says as he saves an untold number of lives. And, fortunately, for that same dilemma, there was Trevor. If the entire world was going to change for the better, I believe that change could only have begun in the mind of a child. I think Trevor said it best in his diary -- The part about believing people might really do it. I bet that's the part nobody could get right before now." Unlike grownups, Trevor felt no pressure to be jaded. He looked at a plan to reorder society and thought, "Why not? Why couldn't it work?" I openly admit that I have an "inner Trevor," a hidden idealist who isn't satisfied being a jaded adult. As people spark to this book, talk about it, get behind it, get excited about it, I get excited, too. Because I'm beginning to believe we all have an inner Trevor. Maybe safety in numbers will allow us to come forth. And maybe we'll see a kinder world. Why not? Why couldn't it work?
Rating: 
Summary: Not a cynic, just prefer grownup books
Review: This is a very nice, very engaging YA novel. Unfortunately it's being marketed as adult fiction, which it is not. It could also have been a great short story or even a novella, but doesn't hold up to being a full-length novel.
Before everyone throws stones accusing me of being a hard-hearted, glass-is-half-empty cynical misanthrope, let me list a few of the major problems with this book:
1) unrealistic and unfair depiction of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sponsors provide support and insight on the program. They do not insult you and the one thing you can count on them never, ever doing under any circumstances is giving you direct instructions. Yet Bonnie orders Arlene around like an angry mother. She also tells her to "make amends" when she's five days sober--this is actually Step Nine, and takes years (if ever) to arrive at. It's like she heard about how AA works once and took it on her own from there.
2) Why does the gay character dress like a woman? Homosexual and transvestite are two different things. More bizarrely, why does the gay character dress as a woman in order to date straight men who he then prays won't beat him up when they discover he's not a woman? Why would anyone do this? I don't know a single gay man, no matter how messed up, who's attracted to straight guys. Again, it's like Ryan knows a *little* bit about gay culture, and in trying to bend over backwards to be open-minded ends up buying into some of the grossest misconceptions about homosexuality.
3) The foreshadowing is really, really, heavyhanded. No spoilers in this review, but the book contains spoilers enough. I saw the end coming from a mile away.
4) People make huge, life-altering decisions in the space of days, get over the devastation of death and loss and abandonment, overcome years of ingrained conditioning and decide to risk everything based on one magical "little boy" (thirteen going on fourteen is not "little"). Trevor's age seems to shift around--sometimes he acts and sounds like he's eight, and sometimes like he's 40. The one age he never seems to fit is 13.
5) The better-developed characters are two-dimensional, the rest are one-dimensional. Despite the rotating p.o.v (which gets REALY annoying by the end), we never really get to feel for or with anyone--just hear them narrating their own actions.
6) Other silly holes in the plot, or things that are never really explained: what the heck is going on in that "climactic" scene in D.C.? Why is the reporter so incredibly dense and stupid? Would a reporter's ethics allow him to knowingly run a false story as "bait?" Why does Arlene work herself to death to make payments on a truck she hates and ultimately destroys, instead of just letting them repossess it? And we don't really get to see "The Movement" growing--we see it spread to about 5 people, and all of a sudden it's all over the whole country. It's like Hyde had a grain of a good idea for each character and their motivation, but never developed it beyond draft stage.
I agree with the comments that said it was a great premise, weakly executed.
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