I read Salvage the Bones by the same authour (it was on every reviewer's 2011 top 10 list) and found it utterly compelling. Subject matter was tough and foreign to me- but the writing transformed me to the place. I was compelled to keep turning the pages despite the despairing and sometimes gruesome subject matter. Based on that, I put a hold on Bel Canto. It started with high hopes for me, but ultimately I found it slow and unbeleivable. (The only fascination for me was that the narration seemed to me to be written in a convincing male voice and it was difficult to remember the authour is a woman.) With Salvage the Bones in mind, I will read more Ann Patchett - The Magician's Assistant is next for me.

I finished this book because others had liked it and I believed it would be a story I'd like. It kept my attention through the end but I can't say I really enjoyed it nor did I find it believable. I know it was based on a true event from several years ago, but that didn't change my attitude that it was a very unlikely story. It was disappointing.

Fabulous. Beautifully written. A must read!

Worth reading, although as pointed out by several others, it is quite slow-moving in the middle. Premise is a bit far-fetched, but overall the ending makes up for it. I would recommend this novel.

Archetypal comedy ends with some sort of marriage whether it's an actual wedding ceremony or the complex integration of a reborn self-awareness. But the ending is normally the briefest of scenes after the long and complex tease between the lovers and an antagonist (as in Love's Labours Lost) or the warring elements of a psyche (as in A Christmas Carol.) Ann Patchett's Bel Canto gets the tease right. In a very absorbing novel about a group of kidnappers and their captives, she explores the Stockholm syndrome where hostages develop sympathy for their captors. In the unnamed Latin American country of her setting, it seems all the easier to believe since the "terrorists" are talented (yet undereducated) reasonable (yet powerless) industrious (yet penniless) youths. It is hard not to sympathize with these woebegone child soldiers and their sadly under-equipped leaders. The captives, almost to a person, can barely keep up the ruse that impediments to a syzygy exist at all. In spite of the occasional reminder that they are involved in an adventure that is not just illegal, but treasonable, that cannot go unresolved or end happily, captor and captive alike act out their fantasies of union as if this were a fairy tale. That fact that the union is both mentally and physically a fait accompli by the final pages of the novel makes the ending all the harder to swallow. Patchett does, I think, the best she can with the mess she got herself into, but nonetheless it cannot feel like it's supposed to feel given the plot and the political reality of the 21st century. Shakespeare or Dickens would clearly have staged a miracle to save the story, and their audience would have rejoiced. Patchett doesn't have that luxury. Her offering is humble: the restaurants are closed so there is no wine and the ghost of the ex-girlfriend is still hanging around, but a wedding is a wedding and without some kind of bone the actors would have been booed off the stage.

OK - so I'm only half way through the book, but I'm finding the book really slow and dull. Nothing happens. The premise is incredibly unrealistic. I can't imagine a hostage taking lasting 4.5 months, especially when the hostage takers are a bunch of teenagers and some incompetent general rebels. Plus it seems that the hostages could walk out at any time. I'll persevere, but I'm really temped to not waste any more time on this book. Well I tried, but didn't finish. Too many good books to read to waste any more time on this book.

Patchett's writing is the best part of this book. She really knows how to take you in. The story appears to lag somewhat in the middle but persevering, I discovered the intent was to convey (and it does) a 4 1/2 month period of time the characters experience. In the end, it is a story of passion and love. I would also recommend Patchett's "State of Wonder", a totally different, but equally absorbing novel.

A good read. Loved getting to know the characters.

A poignant, achingly beautiful portrait of a community that forms under the bleakest of circumstances: a band of mostly teenage Peruvian revolutionaries take hostage the wealthy, cosmopolitan guests of their hated president. As the hostage crisis drags on, unlooked for friendships and love affairs develop between kidnappers and victims. Patchett masterfully brings to life a multinational cast of characters: a Japanese businessman, an American opera diva, an embittered revolutionary, a French diplomat, a peasant girl determined to educate herself. Bit by bit these isolated castaways create a fragile, beauty-loving utopia, but reality will soon intrude, with tragic results.

This is a wonderful book, filled with suspense and wisdom. Not to be missed.