Leonore Fleischer

The reason why I gave this book such a high rating is that made me cry three pages into it and at the very end of the book. Definitely a heart-wringer for those who are sensitive and emotional.

I have been excited to get my hands onto the sequel after reading the first book and finding that there was one. Fortunately my sister gave me as a gift this book just like the first so I could continue my adventures with Ginny and Philip Gonzalez.

The book had even more pictures than the original show more while this time the author did include the names of the cats (yay!). And he also included a bit more the stories of some of the cats although not as much as he did with the original book since he believed you to have either read something about him or have seen it on the television or maybe both.

There were parts of the book where the author did seem a bit repetitive of himself and there was one part that was the third chapter to the end, which could have been the true ending of the story. And of course this book didn't have as many cat rescues as the original but it was still good.

The best part was how the book started off with the beautiful and magical Blessing of the Animals in New York while sadly ending off with the Rainbow Bridge.

Ginny, we surely miss you but thank you for the blessings that your life was able to give for so many - humans and cats. You are an inspiration to all who read the type of life that you lived. Maybe we be able to say that we are Ginnys wherever God may lead us. show less

I'm not an expert when it comes to novelizations (books based on movie scripts). In fact, I can count on one hand how many I've read: TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, HOOK (which was written by the ever pleasant Terry Brooks), and INDEPENDENCE DAY. I will say that INDEPENDENCE DAY was fun, and gave the reader a better glimpse of Randy Quaid's eccentric character. I also remember how they changed the final battle, wherein he flies his crop duster with a bomb strapped to the underbelly into the show more alien ship's guts instead of the fighter jet he uses in the movie. Those are the novelizations I've enjoyed; the ones that expand upon or change details to make the literary venture a different experience.

FLATLINERS: THE NOVEL is nothing like that. Truth be told, I liked the movie much more than this book. And I believe my enjoyment was squashed by the author the studio went with to pen the novelization. Leonore Fleischer comes from the school of old school horror, a time when adverbs ruled the day. If someone were to remove all the needless adverbs from this book, we'd lose around five thousand words. Yeah, it's that bad.

I didn't get a good feel for the characters here, as most of the descriptions of said characters were nothing more than caricatures of the actors who played the roles in the film. I even believe the film did a better job with the back stories, which is rather odd, considering that's the whole reason you read a novelizations; for the inner thoughts and unspoken pasts of the characters. This novelization is written in omniscient, which means there's godlike introspection and head-hopping, but it also means we don't get any real one-on-one time with the cast. And that's a very unfortunate thing indeed, especially in a story like this.

In summation: I never thought I'd say this but the movie is much better than the book, and I can't think of a single reason to read the novelization. FLATLINERS is a classic, and if you haven't seen it, you should remedy that foible posthaste.The film gets a solid five stars, but this book barely makes it into the realm of three stars. And it only gets that because the story is the same. show less

I like this book. While not an especially well written book, it tells a story that is heartfelt and written with love. My only complaint is that it is written more as a collection of short stories rather than a complete narrative from start to end. The chapters are not in any sort of order and often times confusing when the event described happened.

This was one book that my sister mentioned to me that she was going to get then changed her mind for something else. I had heard a similar story on Animal Planet but it wasn't the same dog so I was really excited and interested to have this book so when my sister offered to get me a book I asked her to purchase this one as she had previously planned.

This book has met a lot of my expectations while it was really sweet. The black and white pictures showed this wasn't just a dog who barked the show more talk but also walked the walk while it was one of those "ahhh" books. You were able to follow along as this special dog changed not only kitty-cat lives but the lives of the humans that she met

The few complaints that I have are: 1. the book wasn't in chronological order for he would be talking about something in one page and then the second page he would go back before the previous incident had happened. 2., and my main disappointment, was Philip didn't have labels on his pictures nor were some of the stories on the cats quite descriptive so you never knew which cat Ginny was hanging with while it would have been nice to have added a face to that picture.

Otherwise if you are an animal-lover, an animal activist or someone who needs to read something about the power of souls in animals and/or people I would highly recommend this book. show less