Rating: 
Summary: If Only It Were Believable
Review: I picked up this book because it was advertised as a best-seller in France, but I was quickly disappointed. The author seemed to be in a hurry to finish, picking up speed after the introduction of Lauren and gaining speed at a rate that provided no motivation to buy into his plot. Dialogue is trite and attempts at humor are very 1950's.Maybe the movie will add some depth, but I'll definitely wait for the video to find out. I should have remembered the French like Jerry Lewis movies, too.
Rating:
Summary: Gag Me!
Review: If I could give this book less than 1 star, I would. I can stand sappy, but this was just stupid. Neither the plot nor the characters were at all believable. I still can't believe I actually finished it.
Rating: 
Summary: A good summer night's read....
Review: I liked this book for what it is: a piece of summertime fantasy that's been spiced with a bit of the supernatural for interest. Aspiring physician Lauren Kline survives a car wreck, only to be put into a seemingly irreversible coma. After six months, Lauren learns how to take her spirit out of her body and move around. One of her favorite places to visit is her beloved apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The only problem with Lauren's ability to move about is that no one sees her, leaving her without human interaction. That is, until Arthur, the architect who rents her apartment and finds her hiding in a closet. The remainder of the short book deals with Lauren and Arthur's inevitable romance, complete with an eerie kidnapping. It's not Proust, but it provided me with a good night's read. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Fairy Tale With Little Conflict
Review: If you are in the mood for a fairy tale type love story with very little tension or conflict, then this novel is for you. It reminds me of Segal's "Love Story" except this novel goes the happy route. Like "Love Story" though, this novel is simple and digestible in one gulp. I can see it as a popular movie. I can't account for why this was such a huge success in France. Maybe they like pink cotton candy, like one gets at a carnival. That is what this novel most resembles.
Rating: 
Summary: Magic !
Review: Oh my... what a love story. The premise maybe improbable - a young architect finds the ghost, or spirit, of a young woman in his closet. Her comatose body residing only a few miles away in the hospital. After he believes her, how can he help her ? I loved this story and can easily visualise it in celluloid before the year is out. The characters feel real and the story has a nice, easy flow to it. This is a romance cut from a different cloth than the usual repetitive pap. I yearn to see more like it.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly Written and Predictable
Review: Because I had heard that "If Only It Were True" was a bestseller in France and will be a Spielberg film, my expectations were high. Boy, was I disappointed! The writing style is horrible, and the dialogue sounds completely unnatural. Perhaps it lost something in the translation from the original French. If not, the author should consider returning to his job as an architect. I certainly hope that Dreamworks gets a decent screenwriter to clean this up for the film version. The plot is silly and completely predictable, and I confess that I only skimmed the second half to reach the ending because the awful prose and dialogue annoyed me. Don't waste your time with this one.
Rating:
Summary: WHEW! WHAT A STINKER!
Review: DON'T DIVE INTO THIS ONE - VERY SHALLOW. I bought this book from Amazon thinking the premise was a good one and I still think it is. This author just could not write - poor character development, cliches galore, unrealistic dialogue, etc., etc. Hollywood has a long way to go to salvage this one. I'm still wondering how this author? got a publisher for this trash. It's very seldom that I cannot find something good to say about a book, but this one is the exception - I just couldn't see any literary value to this book whatsoever.
Rating:
Summary: Too Well Written To Be True
Review: When I thought of writing this review I knew I should come up with a negative about the book so the review would appear balanced, so here is what I finally came up with: Most of the characters are too nice to exist in real life. That should tell you how great a book this is. The best part is that the story ends the way it should. Not exactly the way I wanted but better than that. Already I have recommended this book to customers where I work and family and I just finished it this morning. If this story doesn't become a Julia Roberts blockbuster in the future there is no justice. If you read only one new author this year Marc levy is the one to choose!
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable reading
Review: Even though the story centers itself on a "classical" theme: "I am the only one that can actually see the ghost", it does not exploit the obvious. Yes, there are "Who are you talking to?" and "I am worried about you, my friend..." kind of scenes, but if you accept the supernatural principle of it, the entire story falls into place in a very sound manner. All in all, it is a metaphor about two people falling in love, without realizing, due to the more pressing matters they have to attend to (namely, one of them is in a state of coma!)
Rating: 
Summary: Kinda cheesy
Review: A girl in a coma comes back to haunt a guy who lives in her apt... very "eau de rose" as we say in French, or cheesy romance.
The guy, an architect, is a bit of a dandy. I could hardly go through the passages where he talks about growing up in Carmel with his mom. Yeah the story takes place in San Francisco and has a very American feel to it, pretty strange since it's written in French but Levy lived in the Bay Area for a few years I think.. many a times, it feels like turns of phrases were translated from the English.. strange
Not the best but quite easy to read, I enjoyed it as my work out book
The ending seems a bit rushed and is so different from how the book starts but you can sorta predict it, very average experience on the whole
Interesting to find out the week after I finished it about the movie adaptation being shot right now (nov 2004) for an eventual 2005 release date, straight up translation If Only It Were True
I read the novel in its original language (French)
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