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

This book will make you laugh. And this book will break your heart. It is about the comedy and tragedy of life--some of which we bring on ourselves and some of which just happens. The good. The bad. The in-between. And sometimes the horrific.

The story is told through the perspective of one family, broken as they are. Miles Roby and Janine have split up. She is marrying someone else after getting caught having an affair. They have a 16-year-old daughter, Tick, who is like all teenage girls--lovable, hateful, a know-it-all, insecure and still a child at heart. They live in Empire Falls, New York, a gray and gritty town that has fallen on hard times after the shirt factory and mills have closed.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel starts off slowly--almost excruciatingly so--and then picks up and takes off, much like a car idling through a parade and then zooming away at 80 mph. It's a story of dreams and nightmares, of what we do to protect our children and the horrors that sometimes happen that are beyond our control. Plain and simple: Author Richard Russo is a genius.

P.S. It's worth reading "Empire Falls" if for no other reason than the driver's ed scene about halfway through the book. I laughed so hard I had to stop reading. And then every time I thought about that scene for the next few days I would laugh again.

Discovering something new or something deep is one of my thrills in reading. It seems some in the literary crowd do not share those criteria, but admire mimesis more than insight.

This was perhaps the worst book I have ever read. It is pointless and boring to an extent i did not believe possible. I need to write an essay about a theme in this book and I don't even remember anything worth mentioning! Terrible! I literally had to force myself to continue reading!

From the very beginning , the story is very BORING and unbelievable. After reading the first 3 pages with great difficulty we ALL simply fell to sleep from extreme boredom.

I'm fourteen years old don't live anywhere near America but still loved and understood Empire Falls. Russo effortlessly manages to convey his ideas through this book without forcing you to agree with them. Once you have read this book it is easy to see why it won the pulitzer prize and will definately go down on history as a classic novel.

Without fail- time & time again; you effortlessly seem to hit a homerun, ( this time a GRANDSLAM!!! ); with your gift of storytelling! This book is an entertaining look into everyday life in a small town, with some of the most amusing characters that i've ever had the pleasure to read. Phenomenal job on winning the PULITZER!, uncle Rick!!!

I'm seventeen years old and I choose to read Richard Russo's "Empire Falls" for a Pulitzer Prize winning book project. I'm fortunate to have picked such a greatly written book, the characters were very well developed, the storyline incredibly interesting, and the setting vividly set. I happen to live in a small town myself, and even though, yes, some characters were very 'cookie cutter', that's how a small town is. I encourage anyone who likes a great and moving storyline to pick up this riviting book.

I'm 15 and I live in central Maine. In fact, the movie that wil be coming out soon of Empitre Falls was filmed partially in my town! Russo captures rural, small-town, central Maine life almost exactly. I could relate to a lot of this book. My English class read this book, partly due to the movie that was filmed late last fall, and not everyone enjoyed it, but I thought it was okay. I loved how it had hilarious characters, ones that you had to love, and others that you had to hate. Even secondary characters were developed well. Russo has an excellent writing style. This is a good book to read on a long trip or if you're sick...well, no, not sick, if you just had surgery and can't move for a week or so....