Customer Reviews

Almost Paradise

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I am an ardent fan of Susan Isaacs, but I must say that as far as characters go, this one is by far the best. Tracing the two main characters back to their great-grandparents, Susan Isaacs creates a love story about two real and painfully human beings. I came to love these characters. I simply couldn't put the book down; it became an obsession.

Be prepared to lose yourself in this novel. Also be prepared to laugh aloud, to feel your heart soar and your heart ache, and definitely bring a hankie.

My mom read this book around 15 years ago, absolutely loved it, and handed it down to me. I have read it almost every year since then, probably ten times. I am 31 now, and it is still my favorite book after all these years (and I read alot!). I don't make a habit of re-reading books, but every year or so, when I can't find a book that interests me, I pick up my dog-eared copy. Every time I begin reading it again, my husband says to me "How can you read that book again and again, year after year???" I'll tell you how: this book is so rich, so full of life, that every time I read it I am just as entertained as I was the first time I picked it up. The characters are so vividly detailed, the story so well told, it's just enchanting. In fact, I recommended this book to a coworker, and when she didn't like it, my mom and I joked that she wasn't worth keeping as a friend! Seriously, I just adore this book. Another reviewer referred to it as a love story, which is misleading - it is so much more than that. This is no supermarket romance novel; it spans 300 years in the life of two compelling, wonderful, dysfunctional families. It's funny, sad, even heartbreaking at times. Issacs weaves a tapestry so colorful and detailed, it's impossible to put down, whether you are reading it for the first or the fifteenth time. It's characters and details haunt you. You will remember it long after you've read it. By the way, I tried to read Susan Issacs other books and I was disapointed in them all, not because they aren't good books, but because they are not like Almost Paradise. I think I was spoiled on her other books because I read the "best" one first, and no other can compare to it, in my mind. It is by far her best, her "Sgt. Pepper", so to speak, and sadly, she never wrote another like it. I highly, highly recommend it.

I first read this book over twenty years ago. Found it on a back shelf during a recent move. Reread it and love it every bit as much now as I did then. Yes, the ending is heart-breaking, but the characters are intriguing and the sex is scintillating. This may be an atypical Isaacs book, but it's in my top 3 favorites!

This is my favorite book of all time. I reread it at least once a year and the feeling I have is the same one I had when I read it the first time. Hold the people you love close and remember what's really important in life.

I admired Susan Issacs for not taking the easy way out. The fact that Nick is a Robert Redford caliber movie star would have made an interesting story in itself. But it's just his job and the real story is the marriage and families of Nick and Jane.

And, as usual, the secondary characters are so interesting it made me want to know more about them. Although with this book, their stories are told in almost as much detail as Nick and Jane's stories. There is someone to love and hate on every page. Jane's wonderful mother and her horrible dad; Dorothy, the really evil stepmother, her brother Rhodes, Nick's parents and grandparents and a whole slew of people in between. In particular, I loved her brother Rhodes. He is not portrayed as a sterotypical homosexual, but as a kind, loving man that cares deeply for his sister and her family and he just happens to be gay. And the fact that his life runs on more or less the same course with Jane's only makes the story more interesting. And he really made me laugh. In general, I like anyone that makes me laugh.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. The only warning I would issue is to be prepared to devote a major block of time on this read, because once you start, you won't want to put it down.

As mentioned earlier, I read this book at least once a year. And as I reach the part where Nick and Jane's marriage begins to unravel, I always feel the same way. It makes me hold my husband close and remember to appreciate each day.

After all, no one's life is paradise, but it can be almost paradise.

With astounding detail and even more potent wit, Susan Issacs creates the worlds of Jane and Nicholas so completely that you are immersed into it willingly. I have read this book twice -- a glutton for sentiment and melancholy -- and loved it equally both times. I always wondered why a big Hollywood movie was not made from it -- it seems like a natural, though of course a movie version would change the twist-in-your-heart ending, which on the page resonates with power and emotion. I loved this book and love this characters still.

Almost Paradise was the reason I became a fan of Susan Isaacs. It's a completely different book than her later ones- the books Isaacs wrote after this were all very good, funny and suspensful, and quick paced. But Almost Paradise is special for me, maybe because when I read it I had no idea what to expect: and what I discovered was a talented, funny, intelligent writer who decided to write a love story in her own unconventional way: and what a love story it is!

The story of two people (Jane and Nicholas) who seem to belong in the real world, who seem to share problems with the majority of people, and yet...the characters that Susan Isaacs creates become something different, they become people that'll stick in your mind, people that you'll think about long after you close the book. An emotional, deep and at the same time down-to-earth and funny love story- what else can you ask for?

I've read several of Susan Issacs' books, and I've found her to write good, character-focused stories that are well-paced. This is the first book of hers I've read in which the main character is not a woman; instead, Almost Paradise centers around two main characters, a woman AND a man who wind up marrying. The story is told over the course of many years: after a brief glimpse of the present at the start of the book, Issac goes into the background of the two main characters, Jane and Nicholas. This gives an intersting perspective of history, as it goes back several generations (in greater detail with Nicholas rather than Jane). The book then continues the story, going through Jane and Nicholas' childhoods, their eventual meeting and marrying, and the course of their relationship.

Although I found this book engaging and moving, I was a little disappointed in the ending. After Issacs spends the entire book getting the reader to really care about the main characters [WARNING: slight spolier ahead], the ending involves a tragedy, leaving the reader (and, in fact, the main characters as well) to feel somewhat cheated. I supposed that all books can't end on a positive note, but the fact that this one didn't was a huge disappointment. Luckily, the ending only minimally detracts from what was overall a good, entertaining read.

I simply love the way this author writes...and her insight into character personality development is brilliant. I've read all her books, every one of them being totally enjoyable. This book however, broke my heart. It's so close to reality for so many people. As Stephen King once said, "You sell a lot more books when the endings are happy." This book is the story of heritage, ancestry and some wonderful and despicable people. Tragedy strikes the most undeserving sometimes, and this is that story. The heroine Jane is a personality Ms. Isaacs must know intimately to write with so much insight into her emotions. I just wish she'd had a different ending to this wonderful book that traveled through so many lives. I loved her character Jane Cobleigh. It's worth the read...truly a good book.

I enjoyed reading this book greatly, in fact I read the book in two days, could not put it down. Ms. Isaacs makes you forget that this is just a book. The characters become part of your world,I had to keep reminding myself that it was okay how the story ended it's just a book, yet she made me care so much for the characters that I worried how they would cope with the book's ending. The ending for me was upsetting but it also made me think- made me examine my beliefs on relationships, marriage. I keep going back over parts of the book trying to really understand the character's thinking, why they did what they did, like if I could find that clue that would change the ending - make it all better-prevent the sadness that's to follow I gladly would. That's how much Ms. Isaacs had me caring for these fictional characters lives. Read it.

Almost Paradise has been one of my favorite books to read over and over again for the past 15 years. It's THAT good. :#

The characters are amazing. I love Nick and Jane. :) It's got laugh out loud humor, happiness, and heartbreak. You will laugh, you will cry... I always pictured Brad Pitt as Nick and Robert Redford as his father. #if they were to ever make this book a movie)This book grabs you right from the first page and keeps you hanging to the very last page. (it keeps you wanting more) I recommend this book. I have both a hard copy and a soft copy. (my soft copy is now tattered). Buy it... read it... you won't regret it.