The Plot Against America (edit title)

• Rated 0 stars

“I'm listening to this on tape in the car. Of course, it's great. Roth makes me smile. And I've noticed when I meet someone who has read his books, we sort of just say smile and say yeah. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“Brilliant execution of one of his major themes in blurring reality and fantasy: what is truth and what are the implications?”

• Rated 0 stars

“The Plot Against America isn't what you would call a page turner. I had to put the book down for a while, before resuming. It has some interesting ideas of what might have happened if WWII hadn't end the way it did.

I don't know that I'm that big a fan of Philip Roth's. However, I did enjoy The Human Stain. Too bad the film version as simply awful and totally mis-cast. ...Oh wait...I was suppose to be discussing The Plot Aganist American. Well, I guess that says it all! :-)”

• Rated 4 stars

“heard an excerpt on npr. really neat to see a literary "what if" story, and the insight into the communal jewish perspective of the time is noteworthy.”

• Rated 3 stars

“I think I need to qualify the 3 stars here, because overall I don't recommend this book. The very best part for me was his depiction of a sensitive young boy, the boy who became the writer Roth. This he does brilliantly, I think. I intensely disliked the framework, though, the "what-if" of a Lindbergh presidency. He didn't need to go there and I don't think should have. I'm not an apologist for Lindbergh or his actions; I just don't think Roth should have taken a historical character to the extremes he does in this book. ”

• Rated 0 stars

“The book makes one wonder what might have been had the US avoided World War II. If the US didn't enter the war, how far would Germany have gotten in it's plan to takeover Europe and what would Asia look like ruled by the Japanese? If there was no war, would there have been a Baby Boom? How might the many thousands of people who otherwise died in the war have impacted the US? Would there have been a Women's movement, since it was fueled in large part by the women who worked in factories while the men were away fighting the war and who began to question their traditional roles in society after the war? How might the fifties have gone with no Eisenhower in the White House? Would there have been a Korean or Vietnam conflict?”

• Rated 2 stars

“The idea behind this book was great, but the story got bogged down somewhere. I did not enjoy it.”

• Rated 3 stars

“I thought this was an interesting book, but not that great.”

• Rated 1 stars

“This could be the worst book I've ever read. The author seems to recognize his gross inability to create a story that's even remotely believable, so he compensates by simply including as little plot or action as possible. The climax is nonexistent. The logic he uses to explain the behavior of his characters is ridiculous. His fascination with run-on sentences renders entire paragraphs unintelligible, but you learn quickly not to mind, since the odds of them actually being relevant to the story are negligible. I am dumber for having read this.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Roth's manipulation of history was believable and scary, if a little slow in places. ”