True aficionando:YES - General reader: Horrid
930811
Tolkien geeks will absolutely love the Silmarillion. Everything you wanted to know about the background and origins of Tolkien's world is there, albeit much of it briefly stated.
For the average person who really liked LOTR and just wants some more background, might I suggest that having lit bamboo splints shoved under your eyelids is less painful than trying to plow through this book. Many, if not most characters in this morality play have a number of names they are known by and you never know which name they are going to be referred to by. I found myself constantly going to the name in the back of the book to refresh myself as to which name went with who. There are many characters and much information that you ask, "SO?" about after reading it. It doesn't take long to see that the Nordor (Deep Elves) are one bunch of dumb bunnies. They are reminiscent of the Isrealites. Etc. etc.  Anyway, if you are Joe Blow and just want to pick up some additional info on the bigger Tolkien world, might I suggest there are several internet sites that will make it much easier. If you insist on trudging through this book, allot 2 packs of yellow post-it notes and 3 months to fully read, remember and digest it. I made it through but I'm not sure why.....
4080645
I bought this book, and ended up doing something very, very rare.  I  didn't finish it. I didn't sell it.  I, who am positively reverent about  the printed word, threw it away.
The reviewer who mentioned the dog's  fate has it right.  This book turned my stomach so badly that I couldn't go  on.  And I read everything.
This book is dreadful.  God awful. It makes  me sick to think that someone, somewhere, is going to compare this book to  Susan Matthew's books, and thereby send some poor soul, completely revolted  by this trash, away from some seriously good books.
Please, if you  haven't attempted this book, or any of this person's others, don't.  I  started out bored and slightly revulsed.  I finished so revolted and  sickened that I cannot even contemplate buying anything else by this  author.
Enough said, and probably more than anyone wants to hear.
2488505
Just started reading last night and shocked at how awful it is...I want a refund.
I read 10% and put it down. The depravity was not up my alley at all. Nothing warned of this in the description.
Have never written a negative review like this but feel strongly that book is awful.
2534197
I almost fainted when I saw that they had the book in Spanish as well. I read the book after I saw a super sad tv special depicting the couple who murdered their adoptive child after reading this macabre book. Sadly,not the only child murdered by the ones who are supposed to be their protectors. I have an amazing child,well behaved and so happy,utilizing methods found in the Sacred Birthing method. Page 47 in To Train Up... suggest to use a rod for even for children younger than one year!!! I mean, you read the book and it seems innocent enough but it is a terrible source of council . To claim that God can endorse harming your child, reminder people, Jesus said it ,first commandment to Love God and to love your neighbor (that is your child for the record). So over the use of the name of God to commit that worse iniquities.  By the way, there is a petition I encourage you to sign. And Mr Amazon's CEO,do the right thing:stop selling books that harm children
[...]
The book you want is:
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Sacred-Birthing-Birthing-a-New-Humanity/dp/1412006708/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Sacred Birthing: Birthing a New Humanity</a>

And here are some links to what is happening about Train Up ( I did not train my dog like that, and I have a very well behaved and happy dog,thank you).

By the way, I bought a used copy after the secretary of this so called pastor told me I had not read the book.

here are some links you want to read,please do
[...]

[...]
3246234
Oh my! The positive, glowing reviews you will find initially posted here must be inventions of some publications relations firm! Read on and you will shorter, pithy, but achingly accurate reviews of what is a tortuous read.

The character are well developed although the Schizophrenia, John Hardin, is over the top and just plain ludicrous.  Except for engaging chapters in which a priest eludes pursuit by his father and Interpol the remaining chapters are like walking barefoot in sand with a one hundred pack. (no idea how I came up with that simile!)  Read The Great Santini or Prince of Tides.  This novel will bore you beyond tears.
4660403
Who wants to read a story about mass murders with no conscience or compassion.  Their speeches sound unnatural and the story is disgusting.
1449863
Sure, you could complain about this book's spelling and grammar and not give it credit for the awesomeosity that oozes from its pores. I dub thee: Fuffyfuddy of Lamealonia. Alas, you would be missing out. Take it for what it is; a prime specimin of majesty, a gift of the gods. This book is the only book I've shed tears from laughing while reading. I work at a bookstore, and i glanced at it on the return rack. I said to myself "oh HELLYEA" and bought it right away. Only to be continually amazed. This book is COMPLETELY and WONDERFULLY rediculous.
532696
In the edition that I read, the foreword, written by Elmore Leonard, states "This book is terrible".  Or something along those lines.  Elmore Leonard really hated this book and reviewed it only resentfully on  the orders of his publisher; Jim Thompson's agent hated it and most  publishers refused to consider it.  It IS a terrible book, but only in that  it's such a cutting examination of an author's personal demons.  If you  have any appreciation for the works of Nick Cave, or favor Thompson's more  gritty writings (such as the last 1/2 of "Pop. 1280"), you can't  help but enjoy this crazed anarchy of sex and killing and obscenity.  It's  hardcore even by 21st Century standards....
4851747
But you won't actually want to read it for very long.

The sad tale of human history. I like George Orwell's quote ... "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." That vision applies to the past as well. The 20th century was the bloodiest one so far, what with Mao, Stalin and Hitler running amok ... the most brutal and vicious "leaders" on record so far.

The 21st century seems remarkably tame, so far.

I did not know the Spaniards mistreated the heathen tribes they found in America so thoroughly, but it doesn't surprise me.
It seems funny (hypocritical)  that the British criticized the Spanish for treating the heathens so poorly.

I mean, here we have a large native population, suffering very severely already from the diseases brought to their shores by the invaders ... and the Spanish overlord slobs have to whip them to death while they toil in silver mines to enrich the slobs who are whipping them. When the slobs not whipping them, they're torturing them or nailing them to crosses because they aren't Christian.

I recommend you just type in the author's name and read about him on Wikipedia. Then read about the Black Legend. This will give you a better perspective about the whole business of mistreating natives in the Americas after Columbus' great discovery.
4643144
Please don't read this book.

It's not for the plodding writing, which I attributed to shoddy translation.

It's for the lurid, disgusting instances of violence, mostly against women.  It's worse than the sklooshy CSI images and stories of dead, raped women with bullet holes or other damage to their lifeless bodies.  It's just relentless misogyny.

Don't believe the hype.  It's not good.
2341036
La historia me estaba gustando, cre que encontrara alguna contrariedad como siempre ocurren en las novelas pero el final fue HORRIBLE! Ok no todos los finales son felices  en la vida real pero tampoco hay que deprimir al lector! Sorry, con el respeto de la autora! No recomiendo el libro!
4879447
Omigod this is awful, I mean like awful in the greatbiggobsofgreasygrimygopherguts way, NOT in the "filled with awe" way which someone told me once was where the word actually originated way back in the dawn of time which is when, by the way, you'll feel like you started reading after a VERY few pages of this nerve-jangling opus by a frenetic gen-X (wannabe) blogger who thinks reading her run-on sentences and bled-together paragraphs and mish-mashed chapters in a shrill staccato whine wouldn't actually make the illegitimate offspring of a Frankensteined cross between a woodpecker and a chipmunk hunker down and PRAY for death-by-hoot-owl - I kid thee not. Gratuitous "f-bombshell" and "mother f-bombs" and "lightening bolt vjs" in an effort (failed) to seem edgy or "hip" only make her (successfully) seem as crude and charmed by her own effluvia as I'm convinced she no doubt is. (everything up to this pointis my imitation of her "style", by the way, for those who might have missed the joke!)

Granted, I did the audio book, which adds the aforementioned brittle quacking of the author's voice to her abysmal writing, but I can't imagine it'd be any better from the printed page.... altogether a must-miss...... TRUST ME.
4594802
Mojado is the fourth book book of a series.  The first three are fine.  Mojado was awful.  The entire plot is "mad killer".  Half of the book is a tracking sequence that  could be just as well omitted.  The overall feel is a 1980s slasher film.

Oh, incidentally, the Spanish is awful. But enough.  The real question is: Why such such a dive in quality; and are books #5 and #6 similarly bad?
3350196
I really wanted to like this book. I was intrigued by the reviews and open to the experience.

I read this book over the course of two days, and was very disconcerted by it's unrelenting ugliness, despair, hopelessness, and horror. Despite the cover and the fact that the protagonist is a child, please be aware that this book is NOT appropriate for kids (unless you want your kids to read a vile scene in which a character cuts off a man's hand and then uses it to eat soup with while Ren--who has an amputated hand-- watches helplessly, characters who dig up and sell rotting corpses, and a cover-to-cover parade of pointless cruelty and ugliness). Need more reason not to read this book to your kids? You may not want to have to explain the incest reference, or what Benjamin means when he says that he put his hands under the skirts of BOTH elderly Mrs. Sands and a teen girl "to make them happy" (after 12 year old Ren witnesses these events). Ren comes to consider a completely remorseless killer (of dozens of people by the end of the book) a friend, simply because he has absolutely noone he can trust (the killer, incidentally, is dug up after having been buried alive-- an example of the endless convoluted and improbable horrifying details in the book). I am pretty appalled that anyone would think this is an appropriate book to read to or give a child.

Most of the characters in this book are BOTH utterly unbelievable and extremely unpleasant (although to be fair, some are only unbelievable OR unpleasant). Almost all of the characters are in a state of extreme moral decay-- the author paints a world of chronic cruelty, widespread lack of caring or empathy for others, and real horror and helplessness. Many characters with disabilities are little more than caricatures who disparaged, devalued, and belittled by the author (a deaf woman who screams every word, a dwarf who is helpless, a girl with a harelip who is considered unloveable). I question whether or not the author has ever even met a deaf person, after the ridiculous portrait she paints of Mrs. Sands. The main character is also consistently devalued and even treated as worthless due to his amputated hand. Little of this is in service of historical accuracy; instead, it feels like a carnival of stereotypes thrown together haphazardly for effect.

I am an open-minded person who loves all sorts of books. But I found this book to be grindingly, grindingly depressing and pointless. I kept reading in the hope that it would somehow improve/that there would be a point to all the awful stuff. In the final pages a twist "explains" a bit, and we have a small amount of hope that a few of the characters may have improved circumstances in their futures. But overall I felt almost abused by the author-- I can't find a better way to put how I felt after finishing it. This book had so much potential, but the constant sick (sometimes stomach-churning) twists and overall nihilism destroyed it for me.

****Those who have read the book will understand me when I say that the fate of the horse sums up this book in a nutshell for me. Pointless cruelty, ugliness, and pain.
3827508
I realize that there are very different tastes in reading materials. At risk of offending those who obviously enjoyed this book, I need to provide a warning. Somewhere Lies the Moon is a book that clearly appeals to a certain type of reader. I am not that type. I found the characters annoying, over-the-top hyper-emotionals. I could not believe in any of them as actual people, but they rather seemed to be the product of the author's fervid wish that there exist, somewhere, preferably in the "special to Americans" northern portions of the British Isles, "special" women who have "special powers." Women who are always flaring their nostrils, tossing back their heads, intoning, "Something is amiss." Whereupon they go rigid, with a blank stare, and all about them fall into a state of fear. What actually happens in this book is... very little. The events causing such storms of tormented emotion are pretty much everyday events, sometimes sad, but still... everyday. The whole thing just seemed silly and a bit witless. And I don't like books about hyper-emoting women who seem incapable of summoning up enough rationality to keep themselves from harming themselves and others. Also, from a purely practical point of view, how did these women keep themselves in a decent state of dress? One or another of them was forever stumbling through the glen, sightless, heedless, with dress or nightgown rendered "stained and torn." (A phrase I want never to read again... please.) Author never mentions the mending frenzies that must have taken place in those lowly crofts. Or the regular shipments of replacement night and daywear from the distant city. Oh, well. So, be warned, gentle readers.
325146
Where to start? This book is just plain vile.
I am pretty broad minded but when I heard that a friend's daughter was being given this book as a compulsory reader in her 11th grade, through the appalling Common Core Curriculum, and having read some of this author's short stories, I thought I would read it to see if it was as trash laden as those short stories. Sadly Toni Morrison has kept to her very low standards and insists that we all live in the gutter and mix with the dregs of society. I have to note here, that the reason I read her short stories was because my daughter had been given them to read in college, and when my very well read and well travelled daughter said she was shocked by these stories I felt compelled to read them to find out it they really were as low-life and unpleasant as she was describing. They were!
This book only carried on her theme and I felt dirty after reading it and certainly cannot recommend it too anyone but particularly not to impressionable 11th Graders.
I am left asking this one question - What are our schools administrators thinking about forcing this garbage on to our kids.
Surely we want our young people to be lifted up by what we expose them to. Toni Morrison has once again succeeded in wallowing in the garbage of humanity.
2951462
I was given a copy of this book by a friend back in November because, after all, it was THE book du jour and she was appalled I hadn't heard of it, much less read it cover to cover multiple times. I picked it up one night and made it through about 10 pages before I threw it to the floor in disgust. The author's style of capitalizing nouns randomly, repeating things over and over, and writing in stilted sentences drove me nuts. Plus, there was a general undertone of self-aggrandizement I didn't care for. The book got kicked under the bed and I didn't think about it again until the stories broke this week about how the author had fabricated almost everything in the book. I hauled my copy back out, brushed off the dust bunnies, and thumbed through it some more (I still couldn't read it all the way through, the style was literally giving me a headache), and thought: the real question is, why did Oprah or anyone else ever think this crap was true?

Even as fiction the book beggars belief, but as non-fiction it seems laughable to me that anyone would find Frey's anecdotes even somewhat credible. Have you ever seen anyone who was covered in biohazardous bodily fluids and bleeding freely from an active wound be allowed to board a plane? How many people do you think could be arrested for a list of crimes as long as your arm, including crack possession, and get off with a three-month sentence in a county jail? It just seemed beyond believability for me. Everything seemed hyperdramatized, and I also couldn't figure out how this guy had managed to do such a 180 turnaround on his life in such a short amount of time. That alone would have made me suspect the author's veracity.

Even as a work of fiction, I think this book is submediocre. Granted, I am not an addict (although I have known real-life addicts), but I really did fail to see how the story was uplifting or empowering in any way. It may sound strange, but in many ways I was reminded of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, which was infinitely better written stylistically but the same kind of book - here are some overdramatized, brutally written anecdotes that will totally shock you! Oh, wait, here's some more! Look, here's some REALLY bad stuff! See how disgusting and shocking I can be? Aren't I cool? The main difference being, of course, that Ellis' book was a work of fiction and billed as such, and Frey's wasn't.

I don't really have a sense of moral outrage that Frey got away with passing this stuff off as real life. As P.T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute, and I have to give Frey props for convincing his publishers (and Oprah) that this stuff was all real. As I said, that anyone ever thought these anecdotes were even based in reality is the real thing to puzzle over. I think in the case of the Oprah staffers who started frothing at the mouth over the book, there was probably a fair amount of naivete about what real addiction is like, and they probably got sucked into the melodrama so fast they forgot to turn their thinking caps on. But the book should have been billed as nonfiction, all the same. (Although now reports are coming out that Frey shopped the book to many publishers as fiction and only had success getting it published when he started passing it off as a memoir, so I guess maybe he wouldn't have sold as many copies if he had billed the book appropriately.)

In any case, if someone read the book, liked it, got some kind of positive message out of it, they shouldn't feel bad about it being fabricated. I have gotten many uplifting messages out of fiction books and the fact that the books were fiction didn't make much difference, it was the difference the books made in my life that really mattered. If you haven't read the book, and want to just for curiosity's sake, do it, but don't expect any kind of revelatory experience.