Rating: 
Summary: Could not put it down; wholly compelling
Review: As one of the cover blurbs said so well, it was hard to know how to read this book: quickly so as to find out what happens, or slowly to savor the writing. I didn't think I could love a book as much as I loved DOMESTIC PLEASURES, but SAYING GRACE was equally mesmerizing. The background of a private school with all its politics and conflicts made for fascinating reading. How Gutcheon juggled so many story lines without creating a confusing mess, I have no idea. At first, I wasn't sure I'd ever keep all the characters straight, but before long I was pulled into each story and had no problem at all. In fact, I felt as if I were there at The Country School right along with Rue and Emily and Mike and Chandler and Henry and all the others who peopled this story. The book was by turns hilarious, sad, illuminating, joyous, frustrating, and heartbreaking. It was never boring. Once again, Ms. Gutcheon has awed me with her talent. I only wish she would write faster.
Rating:
Summary: Could not put it down; wholly compelling
Review: As riveting as a thriller, this is the rare novel, literary, character-driven, yet with intricately plotted twists and turns. A masterfully told unfolding of the worlds around its main character (a private school heradmistress, who is a mother and happily married), Beth Gutcheon pulls off taking you inside almost everything important about being human --- yet on the smallest of scales. A breathtaking grasp of how relationships, including small-scale politrics and power dynamics (at the school), marriage, and the risks of loving work. I have given this book to countless friends: I just could not put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: Saying Grace in the 90s
Review: I found this book to be a pleasant change from the others I've read recently.....more in tune with the 90s/00s. If you've ever worked at, attended or sent a child to a private school, you can really relate to this book and its characters. Her writing displays a true knowledge of the workings of a private school and it's very obvious she did her homework!
Rating:
Summary: A Lesson For Today's Parents
Review: I think every person who is contemplating parenthood should read this book, or teach 5th grade for a day. Saying Grace tells the story of an amazing woman while she faces the challenges that life throws her way: her job as the headmaster at a private school, her marriage, her daughter. I loved the authors style. She broke it up into small digestible parts - like a soap opera. And isn't that what life is - a series of wild events? She drew you in - gave you mystery and a sense of righteousness for this crazy world we live in and made you empathize with her characters. I think we can all recognize a little of ourselves in each of the characters.
Rating:
Summary: A Lesson For Today's Parents
Review: I think every person who is contemplating parenthood should read this book, or teach 5th grade for a day. Saying Grace tells the story of an amazing woman while she faces the challenges that life throws her way: her job as the headmaster at a private school, her marriage, her daughter. I loved the authors style. She broke it up into small digestible parts - like a soap opera. And isn't that what life is - a series of wild events? She drew you in - gave you mystery and a sense of righteousness for this crazy world we live in and made you empathize with her characters. I think we can all recognize a little of ourselves in each of the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Depressing!
Review: I thought that, "Saying Grace" was an excellent novel and I became so involved in the lives of very well-developed chanracters, I felt like I knew each one of them personally. I also became entangled in the very well-depicted issues within the school and I felt as if I was also involved in the many stories and trials. However, I finished the book feeling distressed and emotionally drained because of the sad, shocking events towards the end. I was so entrapped in the characters lives, that I felt like I knew them personally and as if I could also feel the pain they felt. What a wonderful novel.
Rating:
Summary: Very nice writing.
Review: Life on the campus of a Country Day School in Southern California. Very interesting characters - feel like I know them. Lots of problems, handled honestly. Best book I've read since A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton
Rating:
Summary: when things fall apart
Review: The title comes from a discussion of "grace," the blessing of a meal, at the Thanksgiving table of Rue and Henry Shaw. The dinner guests decide that grace is said before a meal because it is ritual, "somehting that is repeated in particular ways at particular times." Rue appreciates ritual and order in her ever-changing, disorderly world as headmaster of a private day school. But the year profiled in this book provides her with little order. Rue moves from death to staff changes to disruptive children to personal and professional dilema. Each chapter of the profile is told in seasoned detail (though the constant point of view shifts are distracting and annoying) but they each seem to be their own story. Like a series of short stories, there doesn't seem to be a climax building. By the end of the book, the feeling is simply, "Rue made it throught the year."
Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Read About True Life-A+
Review: This book was the first I have read of Beth Gutcheon and I thoroughly enjoyed the story!
Rue Shaw, the main character of the story was a wife, mother of a grown daughter, and above all, director of a private school. The school, known as Country School,had its own sets of many problems, and Rue is constantly battling with the head board member, Chandler, about the various politics of running the place. In the school there is a child she suspects of being abused, a troublesome teacher that Rue needs to fire, but is reluctant to, and problem parents always giving her a hard time over everything. There is one boy stirring up lots of trouble, and Rue is at her wits end with that child among everything else.
On the homefront, Georgia, her grown daughter is at the Julliard School of music, taking up vocal study. Right in the middle of the year, she hooks up with a boyfriend Jonah, who wants to go on with his own band recording. Jonah is nothing but trouble, and of course,not only can her parents not convince her he his, but they are having marital problems because of it.
Rue's husband Henry is having his own set of problems as well. He is a burned out physician who wants to move and change, and yet Rue doesn't want to. The two get into a lot of hard times in between them between that issue, and the issue of Georgia. Not to mention, Rue's mom has had a stroke as well, so she is worried about her aging parents.
A great book, and I almost read it straight through. Hard to put it down!
Rating: 
Summary: Unfinished
Review: This is a good book for about the first half. But, so many stories were left undeveloped I felt empty when I finished it. Many characters are brought in through intense situations, then barely, if ever, mentioned again. I personally look to books to entertain me and get me away from life a little. I was disappointed that so much was left unresolved in this book.
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