This book lets the reader see into the mind of an austistic boy. We feel his frustrations and gain an understanding about a condition that few of us know much about. The writing was excellent.

Although a bit long, we all enjoyed this read. It spawned great interesting discussions. Good writing. Interesting topic.

The thing that persuaded our book club to give this book such a high rating (4.5 stars - that's high for our club), was, chiefly, the excellent writing. The main character had a self awareness at a level seldom seen - in books or in life. We loved the philosophical discussions, the way the main character was discovering himself at the same time we were discovering him. We all want to go to California and see this land Stegner lived in and described so well. The story was perfect. This made for a better-than-average book club discussion. Highly recommended.

Wonderfully written, this is the BEST type of historical fiction - fiction and made-up characters interspersed with real characters and events. Our book club gave it an average rating of 4.5 stars. Everyone liked it. We decided this book would make a wonderful movie - starring Johnny Depp as Capt Ethan Saunders.

Our book club had a wonderful discussion about this book. We learned a lot about redwoods (who knew there was an entire forest in and of itself in the canopies of redwood trees?!). We learned a lot about trees. A lively discussion.

But, part of our discussion centered on how this book could have been improved with the main consensus being: it should have been shorter. Billed as "an adventure book", there was just too much technical information about the tree climbing apparatuses, too much detail about the lichen that lives in the trees, etc. We would have given this book higher marks had it been shorter.

I rated this book "2 stars" to make it clear that this book should NOT be chosen as a book for club discussion. David Sedaris is a brilliant humorous writer. Is essays were often laugh-out-loud funny. However, my book club tends to want something a little meatier for discussion. There just wasn't that much to discuss. Our recommendation is to read a few of his essays on your own for the pleasure of it but pick something else for your club.

As a parent, the fact that this book was written from a parent's point of view, made it infinitely more interesting, relatable...and scary. Our book club used this book to learn about and discuss all the various addictive substances and what we might do if faced with the nightmarish idea of having one of our children addicted to drugs. A lively discussion and a topic we all learned more about.

Aside for the fact that some parts were written for a younger audience, and were therefore decidedly too simplistic, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I intend to read the next in the series.

Our book club found this book to be too long, too boring. We thought there simply wasn't enough action and the characters were flat. BUT we were very intrigued by the Hermitage Museum and St. Petersburg. We all want to visit it. Unfortunately, that is not enough to get us to recommend the book. We just recommend you do some reading about St. Petersburg and the Heritage Museum!