"If I have one advice for those who plan on reading Shame it would be: take notes on who is who, write down names of characters and how they relate to each other, or you will be lost like I did! It reminded me a lot of A Hundred Years of Solitude, I had the Buendia's family tree with me all the time when I was reading it, so I could keep track of the characters relations. With Shame, there is the same confusion, the characters' stories are in a tangle, some are similar and the constant flashforwards and flashbacks won't make it any easier. Salman Rushdie excelled in the stinging criticism of his country's politics and religion, a criticism that could cover the whole arab and muslim world too. The story is tinged with uninhibited dark humor and caricatures. Rushdie writes about what is happening in muslim and islamic countries shamelessly, his critique hits the hipocrisy of such societies and leaders. Shame is read like a dream, full of military coups, feral daughters, secluded sisters, complicated family relations... a dream that forms a perfect circle, following Omar Khayyam, from birth to death, a dream which ends where it began, from hope to ashes."

"It took me a long time to get around to this novel. My experience with Ishiguro has varied considerably. I read The Remains of the Day first and absolutely loved it. I thought I had found a new favorite author. Then I read When We Were Orphans, which I did not like, and The Unconsoled, which I really did not like. My motivation to read this novel waned despite the excellent ratings it gets. Ultimately friends� reviews and ratings convinced me I was making a mistake, and I was.

Never Let Me Go describes what could be an alternative to our current world or a possible future. It grabbed my attention immediately; I wanted to understand what was going on. The story provides answers slowly, which could be frustrating, but you learn quickly that the focus is on the three main characters, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, their interactions with one another and how they respond to their circumstances. I was impressed with how Ishiguro spends little time on the details of this alternative world; he keeps the attention on the characters. The frightening aspect of this alternative world, though, is that it could happen. You can’t say it is beyond the moral boundaries of the world in which we live, especially when there is a profit motive or a valuable benefit to very wealthy individuals.

Putting aside the world portrayed, the brilliance of Ishiguro is that we are left with a very poignant human story. It is also a story that reads very easily, that flows. I felt the novel cleverly portrayed the difficult choices that the rapid development in medical science will force upon us."

"It's exactly 3 stars for me. Just.

Absolutely the least favorite of the numerous Tyler books I have read over the years. Great majority of those were at least 4 stars.

Here we have the easy, peasy pitch of family "return" for an only child daughter wedding. Tons and mountains of stuff for the sit com. pander and quip. Dialogue parses identically to the pauses for the laugh track occur in huge sections of this. If you love Hallmark type sit com (think of Young Sheldon, for instance)- you will love this book.

Gail was portrayed understandable/real and well. But to say she was socially inapt? What an exaggeration. Not in this day and age when snark and sarcasm are reflected in young and middle aged not 10 minutes after you meet them. Where could she be labeled starkly unfriendly? She'd be a roving neighborhood greeter in NYC or Philadelphia, for instance.

And Max! Come on, man. What father turns up as he did on the day before the wedding expecting what he did? No male with a daughter of record would. And to play him so milquetoast and clueless too? I take that back. More "Friends" male then father.

Well, it is a quick read and what real crux it holds becomes modified and entirely resolved. So she will make a semi-truck load of profit off of this one. With movie rights going forward. For me, I truly wonder what Anne Tyler knows about divorce, and the process of divorce at all. Friends you can be- but never, ever seen the "buddy" thing structured so meaningless to core as this.

Myself, I loved The Wedding (Alison Espach) much, much more. Real issues and not make believe comedy. Debbie here should have read THAT one. At least she didn't have her hand purposely closed in the elevator door by a distracted stranger.

2.5 stars rounded up for the clear prose and at least there was a minister for the "ceremony". So superficial and brief as it was. Novella length too was a plus- there was no MEAT on these bones for more."

"Look, I just can't with this book. People are giving it really high ratings, lots of four or even five stars, and no, it's not that good. In fact, it's not good at all.

I think a lot of people are confusing the idea of a compelling story about modern rural China under Communist oppression (something that at least in some parts is either patently false or just based in modern myth: see, baby soup) with the idea of the novel being a compelling read on its own merits. The Dark Road flatly fails in the latter.

Yes, the government is an awful villain in this book, but parents Kongzhi and Meili are no prizes either. Their ignorance of their daughter Nannan--one of the only genuinely likable characters we get to know here--obviously will lead to great sorrow for everyone involved. The reader is hardly surprised to see where this is going.

And maybe it's a bad translation, but it's hard not to notice the sudden shift at page 275 from straight-ahead storytelling based in the world in which we live to that of an increasingly fantastical realm. The last 15 pages completely lose their grasp on reality; perhaps if the rest of the book had been written like that, it wouldn't have been a seven-month slog for me to finish this thing. I don't think Ma had much of a plan for the story, and when faced with a need to just get it over with, he wrapped it up in as much a hurry as possible.

At any rate, I'm glad I plowed ahead just so I could be done with it, but I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone else."