Helpful Score: 1
Carol Shields (The Stone Diaries, Unless, Larry's Party) is a favorite author of mine. She is gifted at character development, getting us deep into their minds, which are always very unique and interesting. The Republic of Love is another great one.
Helpful Score: 1
a beautifully written exploration of love, finding it, keeping it, regaining it and allowing yourself to yield to it. Around Tom and Fay, finely developed secondary characters go though their own love crises - the path of love is hardly ever smooth. It is a hopeful, heart-warming and satisfying novel. Plus you find out quite a lot about Winnepeg, mermaids and late-night radio. (Judith B South Australia
I loved this book from page 1. Shields had such a knack for 'building' characters and making you care about them, or hate them or cheer them on. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. It's a love story but not a direct one. You learn about the characters and begin to guess where the book is headed but it's not disappointing in the least.
Fiction, funny, veterans of the wars of the heart meet, she finds it hard to commit, he commits too easily, she is folkorist, mythical, he is a radio talk-show host,kooky, off-beat creatures of the night guests..
I thought this was an outstanding book. Great character development with unusual but believable characters. There's a slight twist at the end that had me nervous, but I loved the way she brought it on home. I would highly recommend this book.
This is a wonderful book by a wonderful author - allows you to examine a love relationship from many angles and perspectives.
I plodded through this book as long as I did because I have secretly always wanted to live in Winnipeg. Despite the winters, I think that city and I could have a future together. It's like the one that got away of cities, except maybe, still, someday? So even though I didn't find the prose compelling or the characters even interesting, I kept reading The Republic of Love because, well, Winnipeg. But finally my lack of interest in the book overcame me, and I put it down just as the two main characters were about to meet. Maybe I should have hung around long enough for them to say hi to each other, but life is short and my bookshelf is full of other temptations.
