Wow! This was an awesome book! Not your typical pioneer story, but still filled with those elements. It was recommended to me and I would pass that along. I really enjoyed it.

I started off wondering if I was really going to get into this book because Martin’s use of metaphors and similes were just overwhelming. It was like he couldn’t get passed describing EVERYTHING with a metaphor. But he finally settled in and I enjoyed the story and could feel the anguish of a family waiting for a transplant. I would recommend this story.

I started with high hopes for this book but I hated the ‘pat-ness’ about it all. Please, does a life that includes a husband and daughter that love you, who are human and sometimes think only of themselves have to mean you run off into an affair? I would never recommend this one to anyone.

I loved this story! It made history so personal and far beyond a dry impersonal retelling of sad things like the Cherokee trail of tears.

I loved this story! It was the 60’s all over again and I could really identify!

This book is the Iowa ALLREADS selection from the Iowa center for the book! Their choices in the past couple of years have left something to be desired as far as I was concerned so I’m approaching this book with a bit of caution. I am optimistic however that it will be a good read.

This was a delightful story about how a young girl deals with changes in her life. It’s an honest look at anger when life spins out of control. Ida B is just the kind of girl I would like to have been growing up. It’s such a delightful book!

I started this book with high hopes. I loved how the author started this story and was intrigued and captured right away with the story of this Iranian girl, Tami, come to America and hoping to stay. It degenerated quickly and lost all crediblility with me when Tami hooks up with not one but 3 men in the space of 3 months. Of course the best one was the lovely American boy… Anyway I was sorely disappointed by the way the book headed at the end.

So I read this book during the height of our midwest blizzard. Since I was sitting in a warm comfy environment: heat, lights, food as I read I realized I have nothing to complain about compared to those poor immigrant pioneers. They suffered so much just to have a better life for their children. They believed all that some schmuck newspaper reporter told them. And to top everything off, while we find weather reporting a rather ordinary thing and hardly political these days, back then weather reporting functioned much like the rest of government does today: filled with red tape and useless delays. Everything changes. Nothing changes.

Among horrible movies that I’ve ever seen this ranks right up there. I expect better from Mandy Moore and even better from Diane Keaton. Who really talks to their mother about orgasms? And on the phone to them about sex while having sex? Puh-lease! It was disgusting. It was awful.