katseye116 's review for:

4.0

If you're familiar with John Irving, you know what to expect. It's long. There are bears. There are children ripe to be traumatized. There are rambling side trips which eventually meander back to the main story. Or maybe they are the story, it's hard to be sure with an Irving novel. It's an epic stroll through lives of quirky characters. None of these things will surprise or daunt an Irving fan. This is all part of the charm of his writing. He weaves long. leisurely, intricate stories which catch you up and plop you into the middle of a life at once both more interesting and more tragic than your own. Not his best work, in my opinion, but certainly, always, unfailingly, worth the read.