Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting and powerful story. Worth a read.
Review: Paul Auster's Leviathan is a powerful and innovative story which draws the reader in and doesn't let go until the last page is drawn to a close. His characters are innovative, inspired and distinctive. While I found the book captivating, I sometimes doubted the characters and often thought that it was a bit far-fetched. My suspension of disbelief was seriously challenge. I liked Auster's plot and the whole premise of the story. However, I could not get over a few of the extreme situations his characters faced. In all, I would give it a recommendation.
Rating: 
Summary: MAGIC
Review: Someone gave me this book, I don't know who. I think it was a gift from the newspaper,... Anyway it was fantastic. Rading this book was like having the need of knowing more and more about it. On the one had I wanted to end reading it but on the other hand I had a sad feeling of doing it. I had ever heard nothing about Paul Auster, but since then I started reading any thing I found about him. He is an artist. I think that there is not much people able to write as he does it. His descriptions are exelent, and all the people he introduces you seem to be real and near to you. First of all I tried to tell my friends to read it , but his name seemed strange to them and didn't trust on me. But now I feel I am not the only one.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: Stunning. I'm speechless
Rating:
Summary: d e v a s t a t i n g
Review: the best book i have read. i brought it with me on vacation to sweden and couldn't do a damn thing in stockholm until i finished it. i was left completely devastated by the time i finished. a truly haunting book.
Rating:
Summary: crafty, but flawed by the writer's philosophizing conceits
Review: The book is meticulously written and structured with knowing complexity. What usually hurts Auster's books are his overreliance on the philosophical issues to propel the narrative or define the characters' motivation or psychology. The books simply become illustrations of the ideas rather than ideas revealing themselves out of the writings. Nevertheless, Auster is powerful when indicating small metaphysical details that everyday existence represses, and elegance of his prose is perhaps only matched by DeLillo among Americans. One other point: Auster has not thoght through the textual implications that first person narratives present. At the end of the book, there is a passage indicating that the narrator gave the very text that he wrote to the FBI agents. How could he have written about the act itself given that we should believe the verity of this writing as a confession?
Rating:
Summary: Full of action and tension
Review: The story of "Leviathan" is about the fate of two novelists - one is the narrator, Peter Aaron, and the other one is his best ally Benjamin Sachs. It starts with a newspaper article about a man who blew himself up on a road in Northern Wisconsin which arouses the suspicion in Peter Aaron that this man was his friend Benjamin. After the two FBI-men, who investigate on the case, came to Aaron (led by a telephone number found in the coat of the dead body), the narrator tells us about all the ups and downs of the life of Sachs in a very detailed way. He comments on the events and draws his conclusions - very well understandable and with aspects you would not directly think of. The way he tells it reveals also interesting traits of himself. The story is constructed very systematically, in chronological order and "everything is connected to everything". The book is full of action and tension although you know the end right from the start. There is no event you may predict and there are many surprising and somehow ironical chances.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating Austerish tale - simply a masterpiece
Review: The story-teller's story about his friend Benjamin Sachs is just as fantastic as the monumental New York Trilogy. The reader never knows what turns the story may take on its digressionnal way to the end. B. Sachs is a fascinating character, encorporating typical Austerish features. As in the aforementioned New york Trilogy, coincidences steer our lives, bringing both happiness and accidental misfortunes, something Mr. Sachs experiences. Interpersonal relations are also important in this novel; maybe they represent a hope in a chaotic , shall I say post- modernist world. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled having read this novel, and I'm looking forward to reading it again in the near future. Thank you, Paul!
Rating: 
Summary: Artificial Suspense
Review: The strategy of the story-telling didn't work for me.
I found the first ten pages so annoying and tedious that I couldn't read any further.
What I gather from the first 10 pp is that:
1. The dead guy had a "terrible secret." I need to know up front what this is, to keep reading. I won't read another page to find out.
2. The narrator knew the dead guy but doesn't want to tell FBI. I can't imagine why, and I don't care. This is supposed to be a hook, I guess, but it doesn't work that way for me. Just tell me, right off the bat. At least give me a hint.
3. The dead guy blew himself up for a reason. We don't know what that is. Right now-during the whole 10 pp-I don't give a tinker's damn. I guess this is supposed to be another hook. You have to give me at least a hint. Otherwise I just do a dim-out. I took a workshop from the novelist John Rechy one time. He said: If you keep saying, in your book, "I have a mystery that I'm going to tell you," and you say it over and over again, it becomes maddening. It will make you put the book down. That is what happened to me here.
Thank God I can just put it down and forget about it.
Whew. What a relief.
Rating: 
Summary: Started great, went sour
Review: This author has a lot of talent, but it really lost it the minute the scene in VT occurred. I think he just ran out of interest decided to make it sensational to sell it, and went back and stuck some motifs in the beginning to make it 'look' like a coherent book. The last 50 or so pages were really bad.All the same the guy is a very gooooood writer at his best. Almost reminds me of a cross between Summons to Memphis and LA Confidential. The writing from the narrator's point of view was stunning at the beginning. There were just too many coincidences in this book that to me would have been better off as mysteries and ambiguities.
Rating: 
Summary: no masterpiece but not good enough
Review: This is not a book I would rave about, but having read it, I would call it descent. The characters are well thought off, they are unique and personal.
The book if too full of its message, though. It tries too hard to mask itself as one of those books that make the reader think about the meaning of things. The author desperately wants the reader to question his work, to scrutinize it for symbolism and hidden meanings. Problem is that its way to obvious and much too direct. The book lays claims to a realm of higher meaning which it is not written nearly well enough to reach.
However, taken at face value, it is a pretty enjoyable read.
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