Rating: 
Summary: wish I'd bought another
Review: I am sorry I bought The Language of Good-Bye at LAX airport on a recent trip. I don't disagree that the writing is good, but the story line is so uninteresting. I don't have much interest in why a man who has cheated on his wife several times now seems so interested in his present affair, or why his girlfriend has decided to leave her husband. And they go on and on like high school students about how much they love each other. This tiresome story is all about their self-absorption and selfishness and I'm sorry I wasted my money. The Korean woman was the only interesting part of the story.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved this book
Review: I loved this book for so many reasons, but I especially liked what it had to say about words. "The origin of language is the desire to express emotion," Annie, a teacher of English as a Second Language, reads in a research journal. The only problem is, sometimes there simply are no words to express what we are feeling. This book made me think of how inadequate language can be, particularly when looked at through the eyes of Sungae, a Korean woman who is learning English for the first time in Annie's classroom. When Sungae considers the past tense of the verb "know," "knew," as in "I knew him," she wonders...How is it that you can stop knowing someone? It was the thoughtful questions that made me read the book more slowly towards its conclusion. I didn't want it to end.
Rating:
Summary: Never wanted to come to the end
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. All of the characters were unique and interesting and each had their own story to tell. I loved how Fischer developed each of them as themselves and in their relationships with each other. I did not want to read the end of this book...partly because I didn't want it to end and partly because I was afraid of what the end would bring.
Rating:
Summary: Never wanted to come to the end
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. All of the characters were unique and interesting and each had their own story to tell. I loved how Fischer developed each of them as themselves and in their relationships with each other. I did not want to read the end of this book...partly because I didn't want it to end and partly because I was afraid of what the end would bring.
Rating: 
Summary: Irony and romance
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It kept my interest very well, and the constand plot changes made the book very exciting. You never knew what was going to happen next. The irony in the book was very unlikely, however, Fischer was able to make it seem beliveable. I also enjoyed the way that Fischer put such emotion into the story. You could almsot feel how the characters were feeling. For example, after one of the characters, Sungae, an English as a second language student, was told to come up with one sentence that described her life, it showed how depressed she was. She came to America to escape her past, and now it was brought back into memory. I think Fischer described this so well, because she used to teach an English as a second language class. Overall, I was glad I picked up this book and decided to read it. Not only did it entice me with the amount of drama it had, it really showed how powerful love is. That is something that could be appreciated by everyone.
Rating:
Summary: A page turner!
Review: I stumbled upon this novel and despite its melancholy title, I brought it home. This was a great decision. Fischer examines her characters by employing equal parts affection, empathy, and what can only be described as prickly honesty. In so doing, she manages to avoid smarmy stereotypes and clean resolutions. I was very sad to see it end.
Rating:
Summary: A page turner!
Review: I stumbled upon this novel and despite its melancholy title, I brought it home. This was a great decision. Fischer examines her characters by employing equal parts affection, empathy, and what can only be described as prickly honesty. In so doing, she manages to avoid smarmy stereotypes and clean resolutions. I was very sad to see it end.
Rating:
Summary: a must read
Review: I was given this book for my birthday and could not put it down. It is the story of Annie and Will, two lovers who each leave a marriage in order to be together, and then suffer the repercussions of that decision. Fischer never takes the easy way out -- she looks at difficult and complex emotional situations with unflinching honesty. As well as being an engrossing read, this novel helped me understand why people sometimes leave a marriage even when it has been a loving one. A wonderful debut by a talented new novelist. I hope we'll see more from her.
Rating:
Summary: An operatic quartet
Review: Maribeth Fischer writes lovely prose, offering wisdom, like nuggets, throughout her story. What if, when you marry, you marry for a love that holds you still in your life, that doesn't let you grow? There are not necessarily bad guys when such a marriage falls apart; how then do we cope with the collapse when no one is to blame? What Fischer does best is to present the view points of four ordinary people in two marriages which fail because the husband of one falls in love with the wife in the other. Like an operatic quartet, we hear from each of them as they explore not only what their own lives now mean, but what it means to love. The presence, in a sub-story line, of the Korean immigrant Sungae, a woman who gave up the man she loved and the daughter she bore him when she came to America, adds a deeper wisdom and a counterpoint which reveals, exquisitely, that love is like a culture we must come to understand with openness, patience, and responsibility. This is a thoughtful, compassionate book.
Rating:
Summary: metaphors for love and memory
Review: Maribeth Fischer's The Language of Good-bye is a gorgeous, fine-point analysis of love and marriage. She breaks down and bears down on the minute details of the lives of her characters, and uses the metaphor of language in ways I'd never imagined. This is a very compelling novel by a very gifted writer.
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