Rating: 
Summary: Coming of Age
Review: OK, so you read the other reviews. Larry Watson moves from the West to a story that begins in New Hampshire. Laura is a tour of growing up of a young man from 1950's onward. Paul is at once romantic and pragmatic. He is the unsatisfied, incomplete without his dream. A life of shoulds and shouldn'ts. The conventional vrs. the forbidden. I am torn between wanting Watson to write more about the plains of Montana and wanting him to write another book like this. In many ways, he has moved from a regional writer in the same manner as when John Updike began writing about New England instead of his boyhood home in Pennsylvania. Paul Finley came of age in the book, but so did Larry Watson. I literally could not put the book down. Watson's talent for storytelling is at his best. Laura is the poet but Watson uses very poetic language in the book. The flow and continuity of the book is excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: A 4+ star book if not for its disturbing depictions of women
Review: There are so few books which approach men's emotions with honesty and compassion. Watson's Laura is a step in that direction. I just wish I could recommend it more.The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a healthy major female charater in the entire book. Both Laura and the mother are overly critical and negative while the girlfriend and wife are spineless wimps. Yes, we need more books about what men feel. But does it have to be at the cost of deprecating women? This is truly a well written book for the most part. I just don't understand why Watson couldn't have been more fair handed with the female characters.
Rating:
Summary: A 4+ star book if not for its disturbing depictions of women
Review: There are so few books which approach men's emotions with honesty and compassion. Watson's Laura is a step in that direction. I just wish I could recommend it more. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a healthy major female charater in the entire book. Both Laura and the mother are overly critical and negative while the girlfriend and wife are spineless wimps. Yes, we need more books about what men feel. But does it have to be at the cost of deprecating women? This is truly a well written book for the most part. I just don't understand why Watson couldn't have been more fair handed with the female characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Hiss Boo
Review: This time Mr. Watson takes us far away from the Montana and places his characters in Boston, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I too was suspicious at first but the book absorbed me anyway. The author allows us to discover what happens when humans do what they should in life rather than going after what is in their heart. The book would have been much shorter if Paul had taken decisive action at an earlier age. However, I was not so understanding of the recurring theme that whenever a woman is betrayed she seems okay with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Exceptional Novel by Lawrence Watson
Review: This time Mr. Watson takes us far away from the Montana and places his characters in Boston, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I too was suspicious at first but the book absorbed me anyway. The author allows us to discover what happens when humans do what they should in life rather than going after what is in their heart. The book would have been much shorter if Paul had taken decisive action at an earlier age. However, I was not so understanding of the recurring theme that whenever a woman is betrayed she seems okay with it.
Rating:
Summary: Hiss Boo
Review: This was my first experience with Larry Watson's work. I was not impressed. Paul and Laura were not only people I would avoid like the plague, but boring. That's the death knell - boring characters. I prefer the author make me enjoy not liking the unlikable. I slogged through to the end, but was damn glad when it finally happened.
Rating:
Summary: skip it
Review: Though I have enjoyed some of Mr. Watson's books this one is a real sleeper. The problem is that I found the characters to be so boring, especially Laura who Paul has a facination with his whole life. The story starts out being told through Paul as an 11 year old but it's written with the experience of a middle aged man not a child. Doesn't work, save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Memorable and haunting -
Review: What I've always liked about Larry Watson's books was the terse writing, the feel of the west, and the complete immersion into the world of masculinity, which is a foreign land for me. So I was a bit afraid of how I would feel about this book, which looked to me to be leaning towards a mingling of feminine outlook with what I had come to appreciate most about Watson's writing, and I feared that it would dilute my awe for his work. This book was amazing. Paul spends a lifetime with an obsession with Laura, and like all obsessions, finds it rooted in complete mystery over who she really is, and what it is about her that so captivates him. Watson never let me down, he remained steadfast to the view of the world seen through eyes of men, which remains for me as enigmatic as Laura does for Paul. He gives me a glimpse into a world I've never lived, that of a boy who grows into a man, and anchors it with touches of a world I know firsthand and yet still evades complete understanding, that shadow world of relationships between men and women. The relationship between Paul and Laura haunts both of them throughout their lives. Like most people, I too have had relationships that I will ponder over during late sleepless nights. I think Larry Watson did a remarkable job in capturing the combination of anticipation and memory that keeps us awake because of our own obsessions.
| 
