No comments about The Loop.

No comments about The Brave: A Novel.

No comments about Der Pferdeflusterer.

5 comments about The Horse Whisperer.

1. Being a horse owner myself, reading the book was a must as well as seeing the movie. I preferred the book though to the movie.
   
   I just re-read the book many years later and for some reason I do not remember the affair. I am now older and wiser and have to say the book was very disturbing and the message very immoral. Also, the ending was way too tidy. The interaction between horse and human is memorable though.
   
   This book is not intended for the typical young, horse-loving girl.



2. I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "bitchy" to describe a female character in an amazon.com review.



3. This book is just bad all around. The characters are Grace, a girl who is badly injured in a riding accident, her powerful New York magazine-editor mother, the horse Pilgrim (also injured in the accident), her saintly father, and a horse trainer named Tom Booker. Supposedly this is about healing. Mother goes out to Booker's ranch in the west with Grace and Pilgrim. Booker helps Grace and Pilgrim get back in the saddle, OK, but Mother has an affair with Booker for no good reason. She just seems trashy for doing it and how trashing her marriage to a perfectly good guy is supposed to be "healing" I can't imagine. Grace is a sulking brat. The father is too good to be true. Tom Booker is not believable in his interactions with people or horses. The symbolism is infantile and heavy-handed. (Come on, "Grace" and "Pilgrim" as the names of the girl and the horse, spare me.) The writing is atrocious. I finished it but I wish I had my time back, and I was so embarrassed to have read it I would not pass it on to anyone. A disgrace to the guilty pleasure genre.



4. After reading a new book, "Spirit Horses" by Alan Evans,which I absolutely loved, I felt compelled to go back and read this classic "horse" book. What can I say, I loved them both as will anyone who has a passion for horses and/or an inspirational story. I wish we had more "Horse Whisterers" and "Spirit Horses". Spirit Horses



5. Peter Coyote delivers the narrative with sensitivity and excellent characterizations. It is a powerful story from the very first chapter and continues to be so on many levels. The movie substituted a very weak ending so if you saw that be prepared for the author's own, much stronger finish.

5 comments about The Loop.

1. This is interesting, especially now that Bush has stated a desire to once again kill off wolves that have been reintroduced. This book gives me a desire to visit this area. Living in the Northeast the ranching world is so different from what I am used to.
   
   This book was not very deep but it was interesting and I got involved in the story.



2. Nicholas Evans again uses the nature of wild animals as the metaphor for human relationships. Definitely recommend this book.



3. While I enjoyed the developing relationship in the book, I did not enjoy the real truth of how wolves have been hunted and destroyed. It was a bit too graphic in making it's point. Nicholas Evans other books, The Smoke Jumper, The Horse Whisper, The Divide were 5 star so I was disappointed with this one.



4. I bought this book several years ago for someone else. I had read it while staying in a cabin near Yosemite. It's a great book to read in that sort of setting. I found both the plot and character development to be great. I recommend this book.



5. Perhaps having seen the Robert Redford film "The Horse Whisperer" induced me to pick up a used copy of "The Loop." While I saw wolves on the cover, I still had a vague expectation that the title would reference something about Chicago, but when I got my stack of books home, I certainly had guessed incorrectly. I found the book extremely entertaining after the first few chapters where I was just trying to orient myself to the characters. There were many nights I stayed up late to crank out another chapter. Biologist Helen Ross is the main focus of the book, but chapters go from character to character like Buck Calder, his wife Eleanor, Buck's mistress Ruth, Buck & Eleanor's daughter Kathy and the wolf hunter Lovelace. With the focus continually shifting from chapter to chapter and sometimes within a chapter, Evans sets a rhythm to helps pulse the story forward. Probably the most entertaining relationship in the book is between Helen and the coming-of-age story of Luke Calder who goes from shy stuttering boy to Helen's boyfriend and finally to a man who can stand up to his father. When he grabs his gear and exits the Calder house, the story turns and quickly moves to its breathless conclusion and satisfying denouement. It is the wonderful delineation of characters, the delightful sense of place as well as the call to a little wildness that lives within many people that made this such a strong reading experience. While the book was first published in 1998, it still speaks wonderfully. Enjoy!

5 comments about The Divide.

1. I have read all of Nicholas Evans books. This book is every parents nightmare but you also learn life does go on! Worth every minute.



2. I think this book tried to do too much. It tried to tell two stories - the breakup of a marriage, and also the descent of a college student into terrorism - and did this from four different perspectives, mother and father, daughter and son. I think that was just too much!
   
   I found the mom and dad's stories to be absolutely compelling. Their story-lines dominated the book, and for me this is what made the book a complete page-turner. However, I'm still torn between giving the book three and four stars, because it feels like there's a lot missing from the daughter Abbie's story-line. With so many other stories to tell here, Evans skimped on a very complex and difficult transition, that of a happy, straight-A, popular high school girl who so quickly becomes an angry, violent eco-terrorist. Evans TELLS us why this happens (Rolf takes advantage of a vulnerable girl), but that one-sentence explanation feels flat; I don't feel as if I've been along for the ride, watching and understanding as Abbie transforms. As a result, I have a hard time buying into that story.
   
   I loved reading about the parents, however. For me, that was an absolute page-turner. When I read the book jacket, I had a hard time imagining how this was going to make a gripping, enjoyable read - but it did! Despite the shortcomings in the Abbie story-line, I became totally absorbed in this book. It felt pretty cathartic, escaping into these characters' many, many problems, and watching as they struggled through them and sometimes triumphed. Even with my problems with the book, I'm glad I read it!



3. The Divide traveled everywhere with me. If my husband ran an errand and took me along, the book went too. I was enthralled by Evans' ability to build characters and his fabulous sense of setting, and most importantly, it held me until the end.



4. I love Nichohlas Evans' books and was looking forward to reading this one, but was a little dissapointed in it. It did draw me into the story, and kept me turning the pages, however, it was not quite the 'I can't put it down' mystery that my favorite book 'The Smoke Jumper' was. The overuse of the f#%k word was very distracting and not at all necessary to describe the moment. Overall, it is worth reading, but it is not on my list to read over and over again, like some of my favorites.



5. This will be a brief review -- this is the first book I've read by Nicholas Evans. Needless to say, it won't be my last. He's phenomenally adept at developing memorable characters, and weaves all the storylines of the book together is such a way that is enjoyable and smooth. I'm especially impressed with his imagery -- his writing is visceral and makes you feel emotions you typically don't experience in other books. Very impressive!!

5 comments about The Smoke Jumper.

1. As many other readers have noted, the beginning of the story had great potential. I loved Evans's details of Missoula; having been there two summers ago on a cross-country bike trip, it was exciting (for me) to know exactly where the Smokejumper Visitor Center is, and to have my own story about hiking to the "M" on the mountain behind Univ. of Montana. Ed & Julia's meeting scene made me laugh. And despite Skye's rough beginnings, I sympathized with her character and her development, albeit a short one. The only criticism I have of Part I was the whole "Hearts of Fire" routine between Connor & Ed. A little sappy, but I'd have been willing to accept it if it weren't for the rest.
   
   The remainder of the book read quickly, but it was annoying. Here's the summary: Boy wants his best friend's girl, she chooses the crippled one, who later admits that he knew all along that she should have chosen the other boy, the Unchosen Boy spends the rest of the book sulking until he gets what he wants, then all is happiness and light in the land of milk and honey (and they build their own house to boot. How cute.)
   
   The boys are juxtaposed with textbook clarity: Ed is an extrovert while Connor is more reserved. One is photographically inclined, the other is blind. One travels the world, the other is stuck at home. One is melancholy to the point that I'd like to smack him in the face, and the other is so cheerful so much of the time that...I'd like to smack him in the face (even after he brushes his teeth with hair remover).
   
   I gave the book two stars because Evans's hook at the beginning was strong, and he was still able to keep my interest long enough to finish the book, despite how little I liked any of the characters by the end.



2. I loooved the beginning of this book! Like a lot of other reviewers have said, the smoke-jumping/wilderness school section got me really excited, and I was feeling deeply for the characters and unable to put them down. That was the first quarter of the book.
   
   I still really like section two - although, from this point in the story, I felt that it was pretty clear Evans was either heading for a tragic, that's-life ending or a silly and syrupy one. I just assumed it was all going to be tragic and moving, and although that made me sad I was still totally hooked; the story still had me sucking up the prose and turning pages. Evans really brings the three characters' emotional torments to life. Even if it was all going to end horribly for them, I was still eager to immerse myself in their lives, and that, to me, says a lot about Evan's skill. I usually don't want to read tragic books like that.
   
   Then... well, I can't say what it is without spoiling the book, but Evans does something that blew it for me. He took this huge short-cut that just didn't make sense! Throughout the book, I'd so much admired the way Evans portrays all the messy, difficult damage that each of the characters carries, but suddenly (as of page 307) this book becomes not about subtle emotional struggles, but about a happy, sappy, engineered ending instead. Dang! Why did he have to do that? And why did he have to short-shrift one of the characters SO much?
   
   I thought that a lot of things about this book were fantastic. But then... some folks randomly die, some folks go to Uganda, things get hokey, and, IMO, the ending sucks. It didn't need to be so neat!
   
   One last comment: did anybody else notice all the attention paid to daddy issues? Given where the story ended up going, I thought it was awesome how consistently Evans incorporated this theme. I just wish that he could have taken it to a different ending. I'm glad I read this book, and some of the images and scenes were really powerful, and they'll stick with me. I just wish this book could have been as perfect as I had hoped!



3. I haven't read this yet, hence the low rating. If it's not sold in Kindle regretfully I won't be reading it either. I've requested it several times now.



4. The book arrived in good condition as promised and arrived promptly as well. I have read this book several years ago, but I was replacing my copy which had gotten damaged in storage. Thanks again for such good service.



5. This book has everything I love in a story: slightly dangerous occupations (my writing regularly features EMS and military characters). War and chaos. A handsome, brooding male character. A love triangle ... and a happy ending (I'm a sucker for those). Evans did a masterful job of using traumatic events and showing how the characters develop because of (or in spite of) them. The 'voice' of each was authentic and even though there were four points of view (telling their stories) I didn't have any moments of confusion like I have in other books. The only weakness: the purpose of the moose-on-fire imagery was unclear to me, other than a vague notion of significance.