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Dec 17, 2009

Lucy rated it:

This book came highly recommended, and once I started reading, I kept thinking I had already but couldn't, for the life of me, remember how it ended. Turns out, it only seemed familiar to me because it is based on a real life experience. In 1995, the president of Peru and many of his guests were taken hostage and held for months. Bel Canto is a fictitious story based loosely on those events.

I only liked Bel Canto. I understand its appeal - the coming together of hostages and terr More...

3 comments like (48 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2009

Danielle rated it:

This is one of my top five favorite books. Bel Canto made me a devoted Patchett fan, although her other work hasn't quite stood up to the high expectations this one set for her. Just to set the scene, I read this book while on a three week trip through Europe. Travelling by train, I had plenty of time to read, but missed a lot of the beautiful countryside (especially of France and Switzerland) because I simply couldn't tear myself away from this book, it was that good. My husband woke up on the More...

9 comments like (32 people liked it)

May 13, 2009

Kim rated it:

I was only 3 when Patty Hearst showed up on TV toting a semi automatic weapon looking bewildered and stylish in a ¾ length leather belted coat. Do I remember this? Hell no, I was three, but later… you know when I was like eight or nine and I would think it was so cool that she was brainwashed---what an interesting word--- and I’d have Barbie kidnap Skipper and force her to drop her frumpy ways and really live the lie…, I mean life. Sorry.

So, what does that have to do with this? More...

4 comments like (27 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2010

Bunga Mawar rated it:

Sinopsis pada sampul belakang buku hijau berjudul asli Bel Canto ini begitu mengundang saya mengambilnya dari bak buku obralan di TM Bookstore Detos pada akhir tahun lalu. Sinopsis itu, bagian pertamanya saya ceritakan kembali seperti ini:

Pada suatu pesta makan malam para diplomat dan usahawan di sebuah negara miskin di Amerika Selatan, sekelompok tentara gerilya menyerbu. Mereka menyandera lebih dari 200 tamu karena tidak menemukan presiden negara itu - sasaran utama untuk diculik More...

21 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2008

Adam rated it:

I read this book because my girlfriend--who loved it--recommended it to me. She also implied that I could stand to girly up my reading list a little, which is probably fair. Man does not live by novelizations of '70s cop movies and '80s slasher movie tie-ins alone.

Anyway, I thought it was good. The characters were all likable and the story was engaging, if wholly improbable (Bel Canto could just as easily have been titled The Lighter Side of Stockholm Syndrome). My main problem with More...

5 comments like (16 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Michele rated it:

Stay With This One. It's Worth It.

Bel Canto is one of those novels that is good on so many levels, it's taken me days after finishing it to put my thoughts about the story and the characters into words. This work is as lyrical and dramatic as any opera, and the word "brilliant" isn't excessive to describe the talent of author, Ann Patchett. I wondered how she came up with such a remarkable and unique story, but then learned she'd been influenced by actual events involving More...

1 comment like (17 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Aaron rated it:

A novel about a hostage crisis that goes wrong -- with very sexy results, Bel Canto might have been a better read if at some point Patchett did anything to acknowledge the plot's ridiculousness. Instead, she treats the readers to vague social commentary about South America, multiple nobel savage tropes, and a crisis situation where people do have sex, but only after first taking the time to fall in love. It's also somewhat about opera, so allow me the metaphor that Bel Canto hits all the obvio More...

2 comments like (26 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2011

jo rated it:

i don't think i want to rate this book. in my opinion it's not a good book, but there is something very powerful about it and i don't think a rating can do justice to the combination of these two facts -- the fact that it isn't a good book and the fact that there is something powerful about it.

it isn't a good book for all the reasons everyone who gave it one star brings up. what is powerful about it is that the whole book is a tribute to womanhood. someone told me yesterday that eve More...

16 comments like (9 people liked it)

May 31, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

Let me preface this review by saying that I know this a disproportionately emotional review, but it's my review and my emotions and it is what it is.

In 1996, the home of the Japanese ambassador to Peru was taken hostage by guerillas during a party and held for 126 days until the home was raided by military force killing all the insurgents, many executed after they surrendered. At a time when Peru suffered an undercurrent of terrorist activity, president Fujimori was praised for his h More...

14 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2008

Robert rated it:

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (Harper, 2001)

I have spent quite a while mulling this over, and have finally come to the conclusion that, patterned after Greek tragic opera or not, I can't forgive Ann Patchett for the climax of this novel. Much of that has to do with the beginning of the novel; I'd have been inclined to be more forgiving had the first hundred pages not moved at a snail's pace. But the book finally picked up, everything was going along swimmingly, and then, suddenly, bam-the mo More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Mar 01, 2009

Amanda rated it:

There is nothing I can say. I don't even know how.

Instead, I will veil my head, lament the deaths of each person loved since the beginning of time, and cry tears of unsurpassed desolation in the hopes that tomorrow, the sun will shine on my face and god will see me standing there.

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2009

Sandi rated it:

"Bel Canto" may be one of the top ten books I've read this year. It is absolutely beautifully written and very gripping. I really felt like I was there and that I was getting to know the characters as they got to know each other. I felt like one of them. Without giving anything away, I was totally surprised and shocked by the ending. However, in retrospect, I realized that it really couldn't have ended any other way. I recommend "Bel Canto" for everyone.

____ More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Sammy rated it:

Ann Patchett truly did an amazing job with writing this book. She wrote in a style that made you feel like you were there being held hostage. Time played no factor in the story... just like the hostages lost their sense of time. After a while you no longer knew if it had been two weeks since the terrorists had crashed the party, or two months. And when you do find out it's been two months you're just as shocked as the hostages.

You grow weary along with the hostages when you read abou More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Susie rated it:

I did enjoy Bel Canto. I found it to be a very pretty book in writing and plot. The characters each had something about them that appealed to me as a reader and made me associate with them. I enjoyed the idea that music (more specifcally opera) was the one thing that they all understood no matter what country they were from nor which side they were on. Though I do not know opera, it was easy to associate the devotion these people had to music to other things in my life which made relating to More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2010

theduckthief rated it:

The Good:
In an unnamed South American country, a birthday party is being celebrated for a Mr. Hosokawa, one of the most wealthy men in the world. He's a workaholic and only agreed to attend after hearing his favourite opera singer, Roxanne Coss, would be there. The party is going well until interrupted by a group of terrorists. Their plan, to hold the President hostage and make demands upon the government. When they discover the leaders absence, the terrorists are forced to rethink their p More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2010

S. rated it:

All in all a little too sugar-coated for my taste – the discovered friendships, unlikely loves, the pervading beauty of every damn thing . . . And the purported passion surrounding one of the most important elements, opera, was unconvincing. It felt largely like a vacuous prop to be honest, like rattling off a list of arias to prove yourself a connoisseur of the beautiful.

But the writing was decent and I decided about a quarter of the way through I shouldn’t be too hard-hearted (and More...

11 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jessica rated it:

Exquisite. Patchett does two really remarkable things here. Well, she does many remarkable things, but two I'd particularly like to point out:
1. When an author loves her characters too much, the reader can often tell. Situations and descriptions seem contrived, and there is a veneer of (usually unintentional) dishonesty. But in Bel Canto, it's clear that Patchett is in love with her characters, yet she is able to remain objective and in control. Her role as the omniscient narrator allows h More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 31, 2008

Rachel rated it:

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3 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 05, 2008

Sally rated it:

I just couldn't do it! The premise was great, the writing was swallowable, but the story! The painful, painful story. There was no character that I truly cared about, and when the "hostages" became "free" or whatever I threw the book across the room and there it has remained ever since. A hefty dust bunny now resides atop. I'd rather read Better Homes and Gardens than finish this one.

12 comments like (15 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2009

Lisette rated it:

Books are so subjective. No matter how much we know this, it’s still shocking to love a book and see that others hated it, or to hate a book that others loved. It’s the same for everything else in life: people, films, TV shows, vacation spots, singers, etc. etc. We are all so very different.

Sometimes, when I finish a book, if I didn’t like it, I will usually have very concrete reasons why I did not. And sometimes I will have very concrete reasons why I did like a book. But often, a More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

May 25, 2008

Yosafbridg rated it:

Bel Canto gathers together a rather disparate group of people of varying nationalities and classes in an unnamed South American country to hear a world renowned American opera singer perform and to make important political and business connections. Gathered at the vice-presidential mansion for an elegant party celebrating the fifty-third birthday of Katsumi Hosokawa, the CEO of a huge Japanese electronics firm whose business the country (and everyone else is hoping to woe). Hosokawa is there bec More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2008

Libby rated it:

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2 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 06, 2007

sydney rated it:

Here's the setup: a bunch of richies and dignitaries and businesspeople converge in the mansion of the Vice President of a poor, unnamed South American country. The guest of honor, a Japanese businessman, Mr. Hosukawa, thinks he's there for his birthday party, but really, the South Americans brought him in so he'd decide to invest in their country. But the only way they could get him to come was by paying loads of money to bring his favorite opera singer, Roxane Coss, to perform at the party. More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

alex rated it:

it was... readable. flat characters. overly foreshadowed. i brought it to the beach b/c i thought it'd be a good beach read. it reminded me of jean-jacques beneix's film Diva, except instead of some large complex crime with lots of confusion and intrigue, it was simple and dull. maudlin and vapid. everyone loves the soprano. everyone loves each other. both music and love are transcendent, ephemeral, and life-altering. the end.

p.s. the book definitely takes place in peru.

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Kathy rated it:

This is a book I just randomly picked from a display shelf at the library. I enjoyed it right from the beginning. The first paragraph drew me in and I really enjoyed the writing and the characters. The situation was really interesting too. It wasn't anything too heavy or deep, just entertaining and a good story. I was actually interested enough that I had one of my rare nights of staying up until the early hours of the morning to finish it. Unfortunately I was very disappointed in the endi More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Jana rated it:

Ann Patchett fell in love with her characters, and you could tell that from the beginning. And what she did, I did as well.

I'm so happy that Bel Canto and I shared some time together. It was pretty much difficult to say goodbye. I felt bonded with it like it was my friend, as I attached myself with some of the characters very much.

It so rare to find a book where you have such a big group of people, on extreme opposite sides and, the middle with no sides, for which you c More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Zinta rated it:

When Ann Patchett came to the college where I work on staff to give a reading to our students, I attended. The room was packed and bursting to the seams. Her book had been assigned as part of a summer reading program for incoming freshman, discussed in groups, now discussed with the author herself, and all concluding with her reading. It was a delight. Many authors who write well do not read well, but Patchett does both - and very well.

Bel Canto is a simple enough story (and those a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 10, 2008

Laura rated it:

In the hope of attracting foreign investment, an obscure South American country hosts a birthday celebration for an opera-loving Japanese industrialist. They’ve managed to lure him to their third world backwater by luring his favorite soprano as entertainment. The plan seems to be a good one until, during the encore aria, a group of terrorists break through the air-conditioning vents to take the president hostage. The problem is that the president actually stayed home to watch his favorite soap More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2007

Donna rated it:

I finally got around to reading this book, which has been recommended to me for many years by well-regarded friends. I kept postponing it because the premise seemed so off-putting: a gathering of elite international guests are taken hostage in an unnamed banana republic (a small South or Central American country, not the store). Yet once I resolved to get past the grim set-up I was swept away by the author's subtle, inventive and ambitious tale of the Stockholm Syndrome run amok as guerrilas a More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2007

Karolina rated it:

I mostly choose to try reading this book because someone I like told me it'd be good, and definitely made it sound interesting. When I looked at it individually, I wasn't that interested, and I stopped reading about after 100 pages.

The characters seem uniform (except for the Mr. Hosokowa). Somehow, they became flat. It feels like there's no distinction between gender eventually, and the small quirks that separate each person start to fade out under all the jabbering about the opera s More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

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