I could not wait to begin this book. So many of my friends and co-workers were so inspired by this book. Many described it as "life changing".Immediately,the author pulled me into his novel. At first I was very impressed by the writing style and descriptions. When the author had his character begin his journey, I became very annoyed. The novel,to me, became preachy and tiresome. I found his characters of the trinity stereotyped - the Jew, Jesus, had a big nose and the the black mammy at one point responded with something like, "Yes we is". I found the last 2/3rds of the novel poorly written, shallow and boring and predictable. Very disappointing.

I did not find this book at all funny, nor did anyone in our book club. Except for Little Bee, I did not find the other characters convincing or likable. The writing pulled me in in the beginning, but then the depth of the writng waned. For me, the writing was too shallow towards the end. The book did provoke good discussions, however; particularly about illegal immigation. The topic of immigration has not been a topic of any other of our book club selections. an interesting choice for the club, but not my favorite read.

I have been waiting for months to get this book from my library and have a great read. Unfortunately, I found it boring and poor introduction and development of characters. I read several books while reading this one since The Goldfinch did not pull me in, but I plodded through this book hoping to find what all of the hype was.