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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Michael Blake
For those who simply value the literary experience, Thirteen Moons will provide the immense satisfaction of taking a literary journey of magnitude. Whether on a plane, in an office or curled in a window seat, readers who absorb Will's story will find their own lives enriched.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
The history that Frazier hauntingly unwinds through Will is as melodic as it is melancholy, but the sublime love story is the narrative's true heart. [28 Aug 2006, p.30]
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Irene Wanner
Despite his novel's ambling awkwardness at times, Frazier does deliver a big book that is not only deeply moving on occasion but also greatly entertaining to settle down with for the long haul.
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Favorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Donna Bowman
It's far from a page-turner, but Thirteen Moons offers the kind of beauty no one should rush through just to find out what happens.
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Favorable
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The Observer Phil Hogan
This is a satisfying armchair novel for these darkening Sunday afternoons. But though it succeeds through much of its considerable length as one of those books you don't want to end, there comes a point too when you fear that it never will.
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Mixed
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Booklist Brad Hooper
Unfortunately, for the first fourth of the book, there is too much detail for the plot to easily bear. But, finally, the characters are able to step out from behind this blanket of particulars and incidentals and make the story work. [1 Aug 2006, p.6]
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Will's tale is, by turns, amusing, bawdy, bloody, and poignant, but finishing one baggy chapter never leaves you panting for the next.
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Mixed
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LA Weekly Claire Messud
In many respects the natural successor to that triumph ["Cold Mountain"], but it is simultaneously a more and less satisfying accomplishment...This profound engagement with the material world is ultimately what moves and abides in the novel. Frazier is only moderately interested in character, and not one of his creations, besides Will, attains the substance of a real human being.
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Mixed
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Boston Globe Gail Caldwell
Frazier is in love, too, with the wild and twisting path of his story, which is told with embroidery rather than restraint -- another signature of the epic novel, though often here more wearying than illuminating.
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Mixed
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The New Yorker Louis Menand
The trouble here is a trouble throughout: absence of irony. There is too much lapidary sententiousness, too much moral reverb, in the prose. It is meant to be Cooper’s voice, of course; but, though we often wish we could, we cannot get outside of it. We could take the characters more seriously if the author took them less seriously.
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Unfavorable
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Wall Street Journal Roger D. McGrath
I would like to say the wait has been worth it, but I'm afraid many will find Thirteen Moons ponderous, uninspired and dreary...I found mostly a tedious exercise that even the writer himself seems bored with at times.
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Unfavorable
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Christian Science Monitor Erik Spanberg
An uneven historical novel...Thirteen Moons and its narrator lose much of their momentum in the second half of the book. Frazier possesses prodigious talent, but his plot feels too loose and unfocused.
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Unfavorable
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Salon Laura Miller
Thirteen Moons still lacks the fierce, uncompromising quality that made "Cold Mountain" so striking.
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Unfavorable
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Chicago Tribune Beth Kephart
Time and again while reading Thirteen Moons I yearned for fewer culled particulars and a greater evocation of the heart, characters I could claim some stake in, revelation over ramble.
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Unfavorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Roy MacSkimming
A sweepingly ambitious, often brilliant, ultimately flawed and disappointing work of fiction.
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
Whereas the love story in “Cold Mountain” felt like a real romance between two real people, fleshed out in intimate psychological detail, the one in Thirteen Moons feels more like an authorial construct between his hero and a beauteous wraith who mysteriously appears and disappears as the plot demands.
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Unfavorable
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Sydney Morning Herald Nicola Robinson
Trouble is, we come to wonder whether Frazier, like Cooper, is wandering aimlessly; writing elegant, insightful sentences that lead nowhere much.
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Terrible
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Library Journal Henry L. Carrigan Jr.
Frazier's long-awaited second novel ambles off to a slow start, crawls along at a turtle's pace, and reaches its destination after some torturous plotting and doubtful characterization. [1 Sept 2006, p.136]
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Terrible
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Slate Stephen Metcalf
Only a precious few reach the level of bad faith attained by Thirteen Moons. The novel is a commodity disguised as an act of witness against the culture of the commodity.
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Terrible
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Houston Chronicle Eric Miles Williamson
Contrived plot is about all the novel has to offer. The endless and tedious rhapsodizing about the North Carolina mountainscapes might be mistaken by an inattentive reader as lyric, but at their best they read like bloated travel brochures. The dialogue is rendered with a wooden ear.
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Terrible
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Washington Post Jonathan Yardley
One thing is certain: Thirteen Moons is going to be putting a whole bunch of people to sleep.
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Terrible
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The Economist
Sometimes there is no clever way to say it: Thirteen Moons is awful.
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Terrible
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The New York Times Book Review Adam Goodheart
He seems to be in love with the supposed gorgeousness of his own prose, a backdrop against which his characters emerge merely as dim figures, without consistent motivations or even personalities.
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