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Rating: 
Summary: a book of miracles
Review: Beautiful, and searingly sad, yet somehow infused with hope. Halpern writes out of deep knowlege of place and people, and crafts a page-turner that leaves one breathless.
Rating: 
Summary: Good at first,
Review: but then all the sudden it turned weird and boring and I skimmed through the rest. I was disgusted with the ending, so very horrid and disgusting. I am glad the book is over and I will think twice before picking up one of Ms Halpern's books again.
Rating: 
Summary: Someone needs to check their geography
Review: I picked up Sue Halpern's "The Book of Hard Things" with great anticipation, and was immediately taken with the setting, characters, and plot. Unfortunately, my initial pleasure in the writing turned to frustration, as several key plot points went unresolved. The main characters, an educated man of ambiguous sexuality and the poor country boy he befriends search throughout the novel for the man's dead friend's beloved treehouse. They find it, but never get around to entering it, begging the question: Why was it so special? Why spend precious pages on a plot point that has no resolution? In a sub-plot, a local minister visits the boy's father, who shows him notes on a book he says the minister is destined to write, but it's never mentioned again. What does it all mean? The pleasantly rambling narrative ends with a scene of pointless brutality, leaving one character dead, and the others seemingly unchanged by the last 230 pages. Ms. Halpern may have a career as a novelist ahead of her, but I won't be along for the ride.
Rating: 
Summary: Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Review: I picked up Sue Halpern's "The Book of Hard Things" with great anticipation, and was immediately taken with the setting, characters, and plot. Unfortunately, my initial pleasure in the writing turned to frustration, as several key plot points went unresolved. The main characters, an educated man of ambiguous sexuality and the poor country boy he befriends search throughout the novel for the man's dead friend's beloved treehouse. They find it, but never get around to entering it, begging the question: Why was it so special? Why spend precious pages on a plot point that has no resolution? In a sub-plot, a local minister visits the boy's father, who shows him notes on a book he says the minister is destined to write, but it's never mentioned again. What does it all mean? The pleasantly rambling narrative ends with a scene of pointless brutality, leaving one character dead, and the others seemingly unchanged by the last 230 pages. Ms. Halpern may have a career as a novelist ahead of her, but I won't be along for the ride.
Rating:
Summary: Someone needs to check their geography
Review: The novel has some very compelling character portraits. However, I was surprised to read the review in Publishers Weekly describing the book as being set in "New England logging town." It's in fact set in the Adirondack Mountains, which are in New York state.
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