Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Reviews of Main Street

Main Street
Main Street
Author: Sinclair Lewis
ISBN-13: 9780451524614
ISBN-10: 0451524616
Publication Date: 10/1/1961
Pages: 448
Edition: Reissue
Rating:
  • Currently 2.5/5 Stars.
 2

2.5 stars, based on 2 ratings
Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

10 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Main Street on + 60 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This book has vitually no plot but doesn't need one. The day-to-day accounting of life in a small town keeps the story moving quickly all the way through to the end. The main character, Carol, is annoying but endearing with her neverending schemes and ideas. The attitudes and language of both men and women in a small town is incredibly real and hasn't changed much since 1920. It seems to me that there was a "Main Street" in almost every job environment I've experienced. If you have ever lived in a small town, you will intimately know every character in this story. For one of the best quotes you will ever read, check out the third paragraph on page 305. Feel free to email with any questions. ~LeAnn
minimo avatar reviewed Main Street on + 57 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A fiercely satiric portrait of small-town America, it created a sensation when it first appeared in 1920. If not the most important revelation of American life ever made it was the most infamous libel upon it. It is a brilliant blend of social criticism and a dramatic struggle for self-expression.
reviewed Main Street on + 210 more book reviews
The lonely predicament of Carol Kennicott, caught between her disires forr social reform and individual happiness, reflects the postition in which America's turn-of-the century "emancipated woman" found herself.
treehuggernumberone avatar reviewed Main Street on
excellent classic by Lewis...
reviewed Main Street on + 26 more book reviews
Sinclair is very depressing in this book and it is over 500 pages long. Can't say I will read another one of his books.
treehuggernumberone avatar reviewed Main Street on
This is Sinclair Lewis' first great novel that made his reputation, and is one of the best works by an American author in the 20th century.
Bonnie avatar reviewed Main Street on + 422 more book reviews
in this classic satire of small-town America, beautiful young Carol Kennicott comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and culture. But she runs into a wall of bigotry, hypocrisy and complacency. The first popular bestseller to attack conventional ideas about marriage, gender roles, and small town life, Main Street established Lewis as a major American novelist.
reviewed Main Street on + 5 more book reviews
While maybe meant to be a work of sarcasm, it morphed to something else over the years since it was written. Now, after reading it again, I believe it's somewhat humorous. Lewis' political leanings are not-so-subtly thrust at the reader to the point of being funny. It's a good read, though, and worth the time to relive what life was like in small town America early in the 20th century.
anavidreader1 avatar reviewed Main Street on + 11 more book reviews
Thanks to PaperBack Swap, not only have I read and now do I hold this Classic book by Sinclair Lewis titled, Main Street, in my personal library as a "keeper"; my grown adult children will experience this precious paperback copy as I age.
babshayes avatar reviewed Main Street on + 45 more book reviews
Great Story