What readers think of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, plus links to write your own review.

Poor Harold Fry. He was the victim of rotten parents and a tragedy that squelched a romantic marriage. His irrational decision to embark on his journey yielded unexpected results. i got bogged down half way through, but couldn't put the book down for the second half. It's filled with symbolism and life lessons and worth reading.

Harold Fry is a recent retiree living in a small English village and has a sense of overall failure as a son, as a husband and as a father. His cross-England walking trip to visit an old co-worker begins almost by mistake.

Along the way, Harold meets many other individuals and becomes aware of “the inhumane effort to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday.” He appears to be walking away from the person he used to be and toward the one he wished to be, the theme of pilgrimage.

The author takes establishes Harold and his estranged wife, Maureen, as characters coping with grief and love, to excess. The author also overplays the group of people who want to sponge off the publicity Harold begins receiving. This section drags.

I cheered for Harold and wanted him to overcome his impossible odds, perhaps because he might affirm my and others need to believe we can bring changes in our own lives.

For the most part, I enjoyed the journey.

If the "meek shall inherit the earth," certainly Harold Fry in Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry will be among the crowd. In his allegorical five hundred mile foot journey in a pair of yachting shoes to save the cancer-ridden Queenie from the fangs of the Grim Reaper, Harold meets many obstacles, but like a knight on a quest, nothing will deter him from his goal. A college professor once told me that it is not the object of reaching one's goal in life that is of the greatest important, it is that we, like Harold, continue the journey, for it is in the knowledge that we gain that we meet ourselves. The journey is all. Harold's journey is, in a way, a triumph. And then there is Maureen, Harold's wife, who has been literally abandoned and ... who is almost another story.
Joyce's narrative tugs at our heartstrings and forces readers to delve into their own pasts, dragging buried failings of their own out into the light. Harold's epiphany should provide good reading as well as food for thought for all who undergo the journey.

I found it very difficult to finish reading this book solely on the fact that I was bored. There was an air of predictability throughout the whole story and at many times the events that Harold would encounter were redundant. This was a book about blister damage control caused my excessive walking. I give it a 4 out of 10.

A new spin on a road trip takes the reader through a journey of relationship and intimacy challenges with particular focus on moving from guilt and regret to redemption and forgiveness. If you like a heady slow moving book this is for you. I found it to be slow moving and predictable in terms of the human revelations. I did enjoy the sense of mystery that made me wonder what had happened earlier on amongst the characters. This was the one thing that kept me going to the end. I can see how others may love this book. Just not for me.