What readers think of Three Cups of Tea, plus links to write your own review.

I agree with the earlier reviewer that the first 1/2 was hard to read and you kept waiting for the story to start. Perhaps there was too much description of the area and too many foreign words which you can't remember anyhow. The second half was much better as things got started. All in all an inspiring book. I like that you saw his faults as well as greatness. Made it believable.

Three cups of tea is like a bright light in the darkness. Me and my kids read this book is incredible. We really love this book a lot. We pay salute to Mr Greg Mortensen and his efforts which made him extra ordinary. He fulfills his promise with many obstacles and gave us a lesson to support a humanity . God bless him and his family and also pray to god to give us same courage and thoughts to follow his foot steps.
Must read!

Three Cups of Tea challenges us to Listen to The Wind... which requires looking past what we first hear and even see.. listen past the noise of politics and rhetoric and listen to the wind where you will hear the heart of a people. People in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bronx, NY, Haiti, and even Newark without hope (education) become members of gangs like bloods, crips, latin kings, or the taliban. Little boys and girls without hope declare jihad on the world. Three Cups of Tea challenges us to see how an individual getting involved can wage a war against terrorism one day at a time, one dream at a time, one child at a time, one school at a time or just continuing to make one right move at a time. Three Cups of Tea forces forced to see how some ordinary people made an extraordinary difference. Greg Mortenson went past the noise and listened to the wind and made a difference.

We only had one copy of this book for our high school so our social studies class had our teacher read it for us. It is a very inspiring book but it is poorly written it was hard for our class to concentrate on the story.

So many people are really afraid of Muslims, afraid they're all terrorists, and afraid they'll soon be 'taking over' the world. This book shows Muslims are just PEOPLE, their children are just children, the parents just want the best for their children. I must get my book club to read this. It might make them realize we are all people of this one world, so we'd better work together for all, and that education is the weapon we need to fight terrorism.

I too felt that the writing was lacking and it took me forever to get through the first 150 pages. But I was interested in his mission and had to find out how he went from one school to many in such a turbulent part of the world, so I kept on going. And in the end I loved it. This man did such an amazing thing. It really changed the way I think about things in that area of the world and it makes you want to dig deeper and help a little bit. It makes you want Mr. Mortensen to be able to talk to our leaders and help them understand what really needs to be done. I do feel that Mr Relin's writing was poor, I wish it was written by Jon Krakauer, but at least his story was told.

It's a shame Greg Mortensen's remarkable and inspiring story ended up in the hands of such a mediocre writer. What Mortensen has accomplished is nothing short of amazing. This book tells an important story, and one with which people should be familiar. Be prepared, however, for over-blown writing that borders on hero-worship, as well as some truly tedious sections a good editor would have removed. My rating: 5 for story, 3 for writing, = a good, solid 4.

At first I thought it would have been better written in the first person, but then that would have made the lavish praise heaped on Greg Mortesen impossible. He seems to be humble enough but by the third time I read about his exceptional skills and abilities, I was ready to puke.

The author, not Greg Mortison but David O. Relin, has obviously done a lot of research interviewing nearly everyone who ever had contact with Greg. The guy who helped Greg make photocopies is named and quoted for example. The idea, I suppose, is to make the account ring true and objective, but it is actually tedious to read. In keeping with this newspaper style, he refers back to people with simply their last name. I found this annoying and had to backtrack to see who was being referred to.

What could have been beautiful mountain descriptions or even riveting action fell flat and soggy for me as I had to read a few passages several times to figure out what was meant. Often I just gave up and jumped ahead to the next “plot paragraph”.

While too much time and detail were spent on some aspects, at other times key points seem to be missing.

I can appreciate that there is a lot to encompass and it is not an easy story to tell, but I think of Wild Swans or Milan Kundera or even Bill Bryson and I wish this book had been written by someone else.