You know when you're watching a movie and the bad guy is just the creepiest bad guy ever and you don't even want to watch the movie anymore because he creeps you out so much? (reference: Little Dorrit) And then someone always says that that's a sign of really great acting? Well, if the same is true for books then Dubus is a friggin' genius because the writing was so great that I wanted to put the book down the whole way through. Seriously folks, if Oprah endorses it then it's bound to be amongst the most depressingly soul-sucking novels ever written.

Due to a clerical error Kathy Nicolo is given minutes to move out of her childhood home, the house her father willed to her. The very next day Colonel Behrani buys it at auction for a third of it's value with plans to flip it for a profit. The Colonel was once a well respected and rich military officer in Iran until he fled to America to avoid execution. Now he is trying to regain some of the self-respect that he lost. Kathy is an ex-coke addict whose husband just deserted her. Along for the ride is Officer Lester Burdon who falls for Kathy, to his family's detriment, and will go to any length to get her her house back.

Of course, the inevitable is looming in the distance; a clash of pride and passion. The proverbial train wreck. No matter which way the pendulum swings it cannot be good. Except somehow the pace of the book got stuck on extra slow-mo. In 365 pages only about 20 of them have any action; at least, any action that made me want to stay awake to find out what happened next. Then the what-happened-next was particularly unsatisfying.

Gosh, it sounds a whole lot like another Oprah pick I dredged through once by the name of Vinegar Hill. I was more and more horrified by the idiocy of the characters and their penchant for making matters worse with each passing minute.

Clearly I hated the thing. I've heard the movie is true to the book in regards to the state it leaves the viewer in. Though I love Ben Kingsley (Love. Him.) I will give the adaptation a pass. ( )

I was almost instantly drawn into the lives of these characters. The plot is unusual and well-conceived and the writing well crafted. It is not, however, an upbeat book. It tells a tale of human error, pride, and greed, but tells it well enough so that I, at least, wanted to keep going to see how it all turned out. ( )

Wasn't really one of my favorites. I kept reading it hoping it would get better, but no such luck. All of the main characters were so selfish and immoral. It's no wonder everyone got hurt. ( )

Overwrought. ( )

Difficult read, was compelled to read it as it was chosen for my bookclub but under different circumstances I may have given up on it. The characters are unlikeable and difficult to relate to or sympathise with. Character development is good but too detailed. The book started off quite slowly and included copius amounts of internal dialogue by the three main characters. I definitely prefer the movie version although it is similarly somber and tragic. Throughout reading the book I kept wishing one of the characters would wake up and forsee the consequences of their selfish actions, but unfortunately they never did. ( )