Kent Haruf - Plainsong

Pros: The story will make you feel good.

Cons: It has to end.

Review: Kent Haruf's 1999 novel Plainsong is a quietly beautiful tale about seven residents of a small Colorado plains town whose lives intertwine (improbably and otherwise) and grow richer because they're thrown together. They include a pregnant...

Pros: memorable characters

Cons: story will feel monotonous to some

Review: Sure, "Plainsong" is about a small town and its inhabitants, but at its core this novel shows that people need to feel protected, loved, and, well, mothered. Written in the third person without quotation marks (a style that flows beautifully once...

Pros: Keeps you into the book by changing characters by each chapter.

Cons: Predictable in some areas.

The Bottom Line: Plainsong was a fantastic book written in a simple but tasteful way. It was a mind expanding read into a small but colorful community.

Review: Plainsong was an interesting book that captures the soft and harsh reality life in a small community. It ranges from different characters like, a young pregnate teenager to, two old isolated farmers. When reading this book you see the day to day...

Pros: Easy to relate to the characters.

Cons: There isn't a sequel.

Review: I did not expect to read a book the author calls plain and find it so extraordinary I could no sooner put it down than stop thinking about it. The setting, characters and plot are in fact plain and simple, but Kent Haruf?s descriptions of each make...

Pros: Clear, precise and simple writing style.

Cons: None, unless an absence of violence is a con.

Review: Haruf's novel is an elegantly sparse description of a series of colliding lives in a small town on the eastern Colorado plains. A high school girl becomes pregnant and is provided shelter by two aging bachelor farmers. The lives of all concerned are...

Pros: Leaves you refreshed

Cons: There should be more books like this one!

Review: I name this book my favorite book of all time because of the heart-warming characters and the interesting story line. I don't remember ever reading a book with such imagination yet such simplicity. Plainsong really takes everyday life and makes it...

Pros: beautiful writing

Cons: there's no punctuation marks, so be warned

Review: There have been many small towns that have been created in literature: Larry McMurtry's Thalia, James Wilcox's Tula Springs, Garrison Keilor's Lake Wobbegon Days. It's time to add another title to this list: Kent Haruf's Holt, Colorado.

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Pros: The stories are simple but meaningful. Stark but powerful prose.

Cons: I would have liked more stories, but that might have ruined the effect.

The Bottom Line: Plainsong is like a pot of vegetable soup. None of the ingredients stand out. It's the mixture that works.

Review: Kent Haruf defines plainsong as any simple and unadorned melody, and the description aptly captures the essence of his novel by the same name. This simple slice-of-life glimpse at a year in a small Colorado town is more cotton sheets than...

Pros: moving, real life, great characters

Cons: lots of info on cattle

Review: I was surprised to find out who finally became Victoria's family. I thought differently at the beginning of the story.The author does a nice job of introducing the old men in the story, and I found myself really liking them. I also liked the little...

Pros: Intricate writing, beautiful characters

Cons: slow beginning

Review: What I noticed from the very beginning of Plainsong was that Kent Haruf was an extremely talented writer. His words meld together and they flow so gently..it really feels as though you are just sitting back and watching the scenes unfold before you,...