What readers think of Plainsong, plus links to write your own review.

Very Good! It were as if I were by the fireside listening to Kent Haruf tell the story himself. Good characters, focused writing, and a variation that kept one going from page to page.

This is about the only book where I have actually felt the characters pain, happiness, and triumph. I actually cried from this book and from there on I knew that I had read a good book.

A wonderful book. Haruf's perceptions of human nature, and the atmosphere he creates makes this one of the best books I've read this year.

I keep recommending this book over and over again. I have given it to my friends, my daughters, my students, and even to my husband. Everyone says the same thing: "What a great book." Yet everyone who reads it comes away with something different. It has been a long time since I have read a book that has made me laugh and cry like this novel did.

When I have recommended this book to friends, I found myself over and over calling it "such a sweet book." That does not do it justice. It is about connections, made and broken and remade in the most unexpected ways. Haruf loves his characters and we do too, in the end. I read it on the train, and I would read a chapter, close the book and loook out the window and cry a little, and then read another chapter. These people have not had easy lives, but they are still willing to "give it one more shot," and let someone love them one more time.

I felt this novel had a timeless universal quality about it. As if Haruf didn't write it but plucked it out of a previous existence. The story and the charactors were always there and he just need to put them on paper.

Plainsong...a slow starter....fractured linkage between major characters in plot...suddenly woven together after all are introduced with separate heartaches...tough time initially accepting the willingness of two old weatherbeaten bachelor farmers willing to take in a young girl (Victoria); especially under the circumstances...and Maggie maintains a very odd Mother Teresa personality blended with deep personal loneliness..

The simplicity of the language is bitingly real...and the book really grows on one toward the end....some tastes of Nicholas Sparks style...and perhaps some Robert Newton Peck tossed in..
....eternal values and human experience at its earthy best..
GV

Okay, here's the thing. This book is called Plainsong. I think that there is a point to the whole thing with no quotations and minimal punctuation. This book was real, and it takes maturity to read it, which is why I'm glad it was an option for my high school's summer reading for incoming Juniors. There were a lot of sex and drugs, but that gave the book more reality than most. I'm sixteen and I enjoyed this book. There were some elements that I didn't love, like the awkward threesome situation with the red-headed boy and his girlfriend and other friend.. That was weird.. But I loved the part with Victoria. I wish the author explained more about Ike and Bobby's mother, and I didn't get why the old woman specifically told Ike and Bobby not to smoke but the author made a point that they did smoke.. Overall, I enjoyed this book, though, and I would recomend it.