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A thoroughly enjoyable read. It's engaging, perhaps captivating. It's full of details about Europe in the pre-WWII days. The plot is interesting if not particularly original.
I'm glad I found it.

I'm not a weeper. I truly cannot remember the last book to truly bring tears to my eyes. But, as I read this I know I'll remember this one.
I'm the guy who always talks about the skillful writing and ingenious vocabulary of a book.

HOOEY!

I love this plain-spoken, straightforward, thoroughly predictable story - every word, just as it's written.
Now, I must pause to open a new package of tissues...

Whew-oh! Reading slowly to hear the music in the prose - Boyle is always so near to poetry that I can hear the meter in sentence upon sentence. But, the story...oh how pain-filled is this writing. My lad-di-dah self wants to speed up and finish. My face-everything-and-recover self demands a word by word reading and absorption.

Well, it took half the book to get there but this is finally beginning to be interesting

I feel the way I felt reading The Grapes of Wrath the first time, 60 years ago. Have rarely felt that way since. How do I remember how I felt? You only feel it a few times when reading: The Grapes of Wrath and now The Four Winds. Magnificent, terrifying, beautiful, horrific, sensitive, unyielding - genius.

Sebastian Barry does not write easy books.

Reading Barry is an adventure for a reader seeking insight - every day life, every day strife, and what happens when one tries to effect life's outcome - all done in the Irish vernacular.

Be sure to exercise your brain, prepare your emotions, and dispel your disbelief before embarking on this, or any journey with Sebastian Barry.

It is well worth the effort...

Reading this is going to a good therapist.

This unique book is feeling like something I need to experience and share with others who care for or interact with children. The writer has assumed the voice of a young boy and is describing life from his perspective. The difference is that the author does this so masterfully that I, as the reader, lose myself in the young boy's mind.
The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Nighttime comes to mind.

This woman is an incredible writer.
I'm only 15% of the way and I'm fully engaged. No sleep tonight...oh, well...

I'm sorry but..."tundra of trees"?

Oh, I do think this slender volume will be great fun. I've chuckled already.

Each sentence contains a thought I've had or a thought I think I've had. Each paragraph addresses a situation in which I've found myself struggling.
Each page contains words that send me scrambling for my dictionary - they are rare words, succinct words, concise words. They are words that describe thoughts I've had or thoughts I think I've had. They are words that standing alone on a blank page would be poetry.

This book is splendid. The topic? The writing? The author's spirit? Whatever is at work, it is working very well

Solzhenitsyn has always been a hero to me. I find all his writing stimulating, filled with great understanding of humanity, and scholarly. I also find it exceptionally challenging; when I'm not stunned by his turn of phrase I'm shattered by his descriptions of man's inhumanity.
It's hard to continue when I'm sobbing.
My heart breaks to know that such cruelty continues in the genocides of today. When will we learn?

This has been a wild ride provided by a pair of very skilled operators. Next hundred pages will tell the tale.
CAN'T WAIT...

...not sure where this is going or if I'm happy to be going there ..

...hopefully more satisfying than my last few reads...

"It helped a little, like a rosary against the storm."

"...I made some coffee, as bitter as a translated prayer..."

Nesbo NEVER disappoints...

My third try at this...why can't I get into it?

This is like a conversation with an old friend! Toibin writes with such depth of character, such empathy, such power...it is hard to put the book down.