The Garden of Last Days: A Novel (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“Excellent!”

• Rated 3 stars

“Hail, Dubus III, defender of the downtrodden and the very stupid! While the quality of the writing is top-notch, the subplots themselves are not. The characters find themselves in fairly normal situations which are propelled into absurdity by their resulting knee-jerk reactions. The result comes across as forced, as drama expended for the sake of drama. And while the characters' reactions and impulses are certainly true to character, this itself is hardly a comfort. It only proves that the characters we're supposed to care about are short-fused, desperate people at the end of their ropes who will do just about anything. I won't encourage people not to read this book - only be aware that it should be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps two or three, actually.”

• Rated 2 stars

“Story about three people's lives (single mom stripper, burnt out & "angry at the world" father, and a young boy from the middle east ready to fullfill a duty: 9-11) and how they converge and depart. I didn't like the setting, which was mainly in a strip joint. The scenes of dancing, stripping, and foul language was a bit too overdone - "I know it, I get it, I see what's happening, now let's get on with the story" feeling. I could understand the characters feelings and struggles, but I couldn't feel for them. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“Not as good as House of Sand and Fog, but good.”

• Rated 0 stars

“really enjoyed it. It has a couple of stories that are interwoven together. An awesome read but you have to commit. ”

• Rated 1 stars

“Ugh. If it's pain and suffering you want, hit yourself over the head with a brick and save the cost of this book.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Powerful, gripping, character driven book. Several people's lives intersect on one fateful night at a Florida strip club.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Recommended by Stephen King as one of the best books of 2008, I picked this one up with high expectations.

King's made some great recommendations in the past and helped me discover the joys of reading Laura Lippman (for which I will be eternally grateful).

But as for "Garden of Last Days," it was more of a miss than a hit. I enjoyed the story, but maybe my expectations were ratcheted up a bit too high after hearing King heap praise on the novel. It's a story with 9/11 firmly at the center, though the novel wisely never really relates the events of the day. It's about a group of characters all drawn into each other's orbits by decision relating to that fateful day.

The problem is that some of the characters come off as more interesting than others. And despite attempts to give the characters depth, the character are your standard cliches like the stripper struggling to keep her family together or the guy who will turn out to be a terrorist. The novel doesn't try to go for any surprises and that may be the biggest fault it has. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“I liked the first part of this book, which takes place in the Puma Club for Men. The second part kind of meanders off before coming to a conclusion. It was an interesting mix of the power of sexuality, radical Islamism, and Florida's bottom side of the socio-economic scale. Like "House of Sand and Fog," not a lot of fun, but I couldn't put it down.”

• Rated 5 stars

“As I flew through the pages of this author's latest novel, I found myself disagreeing heartily with the critics who gave it generally less-than-glowing reviews. As with his earlier "House of Sand and Fog" (which I loved), Dubus caught me up completely in his flawed characters, under-the-radar settings, and train-wreck plot. I simply couldn't put it down.”