What readers think of The Poisonwood Bible, plus links to write your own review.

Eric Gayawira
Kingsolver did well. I felt deeply for her characters and, far more rewarding, sensed the clamour of a nation in transition.

Kimberly
This is one of the most intense novels I have read in a long time. Although Nathan Price is depicted as terribly wrong in his intentions to convert the natives to Christianity, I am more upset at the daughters lack of curiosity in what their father was doing. They allowed him to control their whole lives without actually paying attention to what he was preaching. I would feel a sense of sorrow for these girls if I hadn't also grown up in a home surrounded by the gospel. However, instead of merely rejecting what I was taught, I investigated into the scriptures myself and I couldn't imagine myself living without God. Yet, being able to identify with Kingsolvers characters kept me engrossed in the novel the whole way through and will definitely be reading her other works of literature.

Dee Leskinovitch
This was the best book I've read in the last year. It reminded me of the book,Hawaii. We as whites, Americans, and Christians, go to foreign countries to do good, and we do good... without the respect of others and their culture. This is the first book by Kingsolver that I've read, but not the last.

Orrin Judd
This was the most hateful novel I have ever read in my life. The Reverend Nathan Price is portrayed as some kind of malevolent being for four simple reasons: he's white; he's male; he's American ; &, worst of all, he's a Christian. Kingsolver has nothing but contempt for his selfless mission to bring Christianity to the jungles of the Congo. Instead, all of her sympathies lie first with his wife & daughters who have to struggle along without Breck Shampoo & with clumpy Betty Crocker cake mix and second, By the end of the novel one of the daughters is actually bemoaning the fact that she can't strip away her white skin &, thus, escape her racial guilt. One wonders at the self-loathing that could produce this sentiment.

Pat
This was the second book written bij Barbara Kingsolver I read. I'm in profound admiration and very touched,both by the subject (I'm a Belgian women and remember my parents being very angry when Lumumba was murdered) and by the way the novel is built up.From the beginning each girl has her own way of looking at the world and of expressing herself.I laught with the expressions of Rachel, felt with Leah and was terribly pleased with Adah's word-painting. This book is very topical as there are investigations about Lumumba's death in Belgium ,now. I want to express my admiration for Barbara Kingsolver both for her political engagement as for her capability to express it in a brilliant way.