This is a well written fast-paced page turner revealing one man's quandaries as he grows from being an independent teenager into a many-talented man. Along the way he is confronted with people he meets and decisions to make which will affect his entire future.

Spencer's writing takes us along on Paul's journey to selfhood as he seeks to find the true essence and purpose of his life.

A really good read from first to last page

This novel seems to have been written in the hopes of becoming a "made for TV movie" Each chapter ends at a propitious place for commercials, each section could be part of a three or four part series. The book is filled with cliched characters, trite dialog and events.
Name brand products are thrown in wherever possible-does the author get some kind of payback for each name mentioned? The certainly don't move the story along. There is also a lot of information about drug dealing and use as well as about pharmaceutical corporate marketing practices.

Ainchee Min has utilized the genre of a historical fiction novel to bring us the story of Pearl Buck, a world renowned author and China expert. The author inserts a great deal of narration about Chinese customs in the early part of the 20th century. The story vacillates between novel and straight delivery of historical fact.
The section on the Cultural Revolution under Mao and his wife is certainly important and interesting, but ascribing behaviors to fictional character felt forced to the point where nearly all the characters have to live into their eighties and nineties in order to cover all the history.
I think this story would serve the audience better if it were written as a biography of Pearl Buck.

One of life's greatest tragedies occurs when parents have to stand at the graveside of a child, no matter her age. This is what happened to Roger Rosenblatt and his wife Ginny whose daughter's sudden death at the age of 38, forced them to transition into the role of surrogate parents to three children under the age of seven simultaneous with their natural roles as grandparents. By no means treacly with sentiment, the book takes us through the ordinary along with the extra-ordinary events in the life of this family as they struggle to regain their center and go on with their lives. Not a memoir in the usual sense, rather a series of journal-like entries that make us a part of the day to day struggles and triumphs the family experiences

Once you've read the opening sentence, you're hooked. I read this page-turner in two sittings. It is a somewhat soap opera-like story of pain; physical, emotional and sexual, experienced by this very dysfunctional family.

Cat,the narrator and central character is returning home after a ten year absence, during which time she was usually drunk. The chapters in the book alternate between incidents and events before she ran away and the present time when she and her siblings have come together for their mother's funeral.

Ms. Coyne alludes to circumstances that explain her parents' behavior,but they lack depth. I would have liked her to give us more insightful character development.

From the very first page until the days following 9/11, Kamila Shamsie guides us through the impact of sixty years of world history, using the story of two ethnically different but interlaced families. Starting with the Atomic Bomb in Nagasaki, Japan, through events in India, Afghanistan and New York, we realize how quickly lives can be blown off course by the events of history. A very readable and fascinating story

A very different view of Iraq. The intrigues, machinations and complications described read like a work of fiction, not the non-fiction it actually is. a bit difficult to keep track of the plots, sub-plots, family and tribal names. Fortunately the author has provided a description of the large cast of characters as well as a glossary of the religious and security terminology pertinent to the story.