I have a strong affection for well researched books. I was looking forward to all 850 pages after reading about herbs, medical treatment and castles. However, it took a great deal of effort to wade through the surrounding romance novel. The book seemed to be a plot outline for a 20 year soap opera. I think Miss Gabaldon has a list of every possible trauma, relationship grouping, and romance fulfillment. She covered them all. I would suggest that she choose one genre and use her storytelling skills to share her ideas with the reader. (Sorry, Diana!)

I have been struggling valiantly to read this book. Unfortunately, it seems that the review will not be in a timely manner. So here is what I am thinking. I love the word choices and sentence structure Naslund uses. Her descriptive passages show the reader the setting of the story. But, it is the story that gave me trouble. I did not like nor could identify with the characters. The mixture of fantasy and realism showed me little of science or faith. I was a Science teacher and really wanted to enjoy this book.

In this day, many families are far too close to battles with cancer. Jeff had more than his fair share of contact with this debilitating disease. For me, the pain of dealing with illness over rode the pleasure of helping rehabilitate wild animals.

That being said, the anecdotes of rehabilitating injured wildlife were interesting. I was interested in Sarvey Wildlife Center and its mission. The book pulled me in two different directions and made my read limp along rather that soar like an eagle.

I read this book during the blizzard of 2010. The descriptions took me straight to the jungle heat, sounds, insects and terror. You really do not care who is on which side or what war is being waged. It is obvious how one can lose objectivity when the struggle for survival is so difficult. Susan , a journalist, showed common sense and passion. Her captors, Anh, Minh and Hien were as stoic as you might expect Vietcong soldiers to be. Marc, the American journalist, was suffering from the stress and fatigue of existing in the war zone. Son "the man" remains an enigma. Did I mention it was 1967 in Vietnam?

For me this was a page turner from the Christmas Truce, in 1914, to March 1926. The story was so well written I could relate to every scene. The author incorporated personal knowledge of military intelligence and the history of WWI. Although I did not always like Hal and Sam, I felt that I really knew them and was empathetic to their situation.

For me, the real "gifts of war" were the relationships of parent and child, sisters, lovers, friends and acquaintances. There was the thrill of love on all levels. Also, there was the tragedy of unrequited love.

I would love to see this book spend many weeks on the best seller list .

My review was slow in coming, not because the book was not read, but because I could not agree with myself about the worth of the book. Hank Carddello presents a very readable picture of merchandising in the food industry. He has the experience to evaluate the methods used. Many of the revelations are common sense observations and others do shed some light on how many of us are duped into poor eating habits. He says that companies resist change (healthy ones) not beneficial to corporate earning reports. I liked his honesty.

He also said that obese Americans choose to be unhealthy. I agreed with that statement too. However, he goes on to remove the responsibility of behavior from the consumer. The blame is placed on the food and beverage industry. His cure-all necessitates change from the producers and not the consumers. In my opinion there are too many instances where the consequences of behavior are removed from the individual. I see us becoming a nation of whiners always blaming someone else for our shortcomings. Can I sue Krispy Kreme because I am Fat?

This was a fun read. The book included the humor of the movie Little Miss Sunshine. I could really picture the desert and the people on the big screen. Then there was the pathos of a collection of dysfunctional but likable characters. I could commiserate with Susannah's conflicted feelings about surrogateship and the people she could effect with her behavior. The most interesting part was the relationships developed between this divergent group of strangers.


I hope that my book club will choose this book. We are a collection of teachers, counselors, and parents of special needs children. We might need sleeping bags before we can finish relating all of our thoughts and opinions. I just could not give that fifth star because it was not one of the BEST books I have ever read.

I was so looking forward to this first novel from an award winning new author. Her picturesque descriptions are a pleasure to read. My book is full of underlinings of wonderful phrases. My senior English teacher (high school) loved "sparkling words and flowering phrases". She would have loved this book, which is a good example of introductory creative writing. The story got lost in the beautiful language. I kept reading so I could enjoy the next descriptive passage.

I have never met such a disfunctional family. Not one redeeming feature was exhibited from any of them. I did feel sorry for Chellam, but her character was always hiding in the shadows, so I never got to really know her. It took several chapters to get the characters straight because their names were so similar.

It sounds like I hated the book, but that is not the case. The words and phrases were enchanting. The story was disappointing.

The thing that keeps me reading Fairstein is her careful description of locations in and around New York. I would never have known about all of the small islands close to Manhatten. They were carefully described and an intricate part of the plot. I like Alex Cooper and her buddies. It is obvious that the author is familiar with the job they do. There were too many dead bodies in a short period of time to suit my taste. That being said, the antagonist was portrayed as a serial rapist. The book was a page turner.