return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
   Reader reviews of A Widow For One Year

Read what people think about A Widow For One Year by John Irving, and write your own review.

A Widow For One Year

A Widow For One Year
by John Irving
Hardcover: Apr 1998,
537 pages.
Paperback: Mar 1999,
537 pages.

Publication information
Author Information
Critics' Opinion:   
Readers' Rating:  
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book
Page 1 of 3 There are currently 16 reviews
for A Widow For One Year
Select your view:
Order Reviews by:
Click Here To Write Your Own Review
Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by Sheri Delvin
Writing a woman the way some man might like her
This is my first John Irving book. I'm sorry, but it is surprising to me that this book was written by a 77 year old man. It reads more like the inner world of a 27 year old man. The female characters are not believeable - except perhaps for the elusive Marion. She was smart she disappeared in the middle of the first of the three part story. None of the characters kept my sympathy for very long, the one character who had promise was Eddie - and he made impotent by the author because ... he didn't drink or he respected women? This indeed is self-indulgent writing with little depth and, like the characters, no courage. Does John Irving always write such unbelieveable women characters?

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Billie Murphy
A keeper - thought provoking
I read this book when it was released and was fortunate to eventually find a leather bound, signed and numbered edition.

I have all of John Irving's books and WIDOW FOR A YEAR is one of my all time favorites - NEVER begin to make the turn until the traffic is cleared - NEVER! DO NOT turn those wheels until you are actually turning.

I am introducing this to my book club this month and I am hopeful they will enjoy this amazing piece as much as I did.

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by angel
intriguing
A book that has the unique ability to trigger off the deepest compassion for the protagonists' fates as well as spark off a fascinatingly sensual pleasure in the reader. A book that makes you dream of beauty...A book that enables you to appreciate your own world and the place you inhabit in it!

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by jeni dela cruz
i hope the film gives justice to the book. a haunting love story. erotic.

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by jim
Once again Irving has wowed me with his special art of story telling. And his penchant for developing a plot and throwing in a zinger at appropriate points is masterfully demonstrated here. And the settings are both interesting and educational (Amsterdam's red light district, for example). It is a wonderful book...perhaps Irving's best yet, and that's saying something.

Rated 3 of 5 of 5 by Joan
Definately too long and drawn out. I almost gave up on it half way through. I didn't care for any of the characters...I could not get emotionally involved or attatched like I usually do when reading a good novel. I didn't feel that any of the characters had grown or accomplished anything. I felt they were the same characters at the end as they were in the beginning with little or no growth. It was very disappointing to read the entire book and there was no forward motion within the characters...only time moved forward but the characters remained stagnat.
  1 2 3   next »

Lists of books with similar themes


Read-Alikes


Other books by John Irving
Buy This Book:

Become a Member
Click Here
Editor's Choice
  •  May 21 
  •  May 20 
  •  May 18 
Helga's Diary
Helga Weiss

Helga's Diary Jacket

The remarkable diary of a young girl who survived the Holocaust—appearing in English for the first time.
Fever
Mary Beth Keane

Fever Jacket

A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
The Woman Upstairs
Claire Messud

The Woman Upstairs Jacket

The riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.
Click Here
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Movies Based on Books: Summer 2013 (May - August)
Jewish Young Adult Books That Are Not About The Holocaust
Books to Give This Mother's Day
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight... read more
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on... read more
The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. The Help
Kathryn Stockett
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
3. A Child Called It
Dave Pelzer
4. Half the Sky
Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
5. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
More...
Book Club Recommendations
The Gods of Gotham
by Lyndsay Faye
Paperback (Mar/13)
Forgotten Country
by Catherine Chung
Paperback (Mar/13)
Philida
by André Brink
Paperback (Feb/13)
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
Hardback (Jun/12)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
The Caretaker
by A .X. Ahmad
Four Stars            (May/13)
Golden Boy
by Abigail Tarttelin
4.5 Stars            (May/13)
The Last Girl
by Jane Casey
Four Stars            (May/13)
The Sisterhood
by Helen Bryan
Four Stars            (Apr/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales. (May 20 2013)
Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: Which of these Summer movies based on books would you like to see? (Info on each movie here)
The Great Gatsby
Epic
Man of Steel
World War Z
The Lone Ranger
The Wolverine
R.I.P.D.
Percy Jackson
Paranoia
The Mortal Instruments
Select Any That Apply
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters
The Light Between Oceans

Online Book Club
More about
The Comfort of Lies
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
On Sal Mal Lane


"Piercingly intelligent and shatter-your-heart profound."

Enter To Win Now!

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"I I M B T Give T T R"

and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Menna van Praag
Erica Brown
Helga Weiss
Kate Morton
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us