Customer Reviews

Death to Reach a Star

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

 

 

The Russian names and unusual spellings were difficult at first, but if I had bothered to read the informatiion provided, in the front of the book, I would have had a much easier time. :)

I very quickly fell under a spell cast by the writer. Sasha is a character one feels great kinship toward. His hardships, and joys, keep you glued to all 843 pages of this magnificent novel.

I kept rushing through work, and took the book with me everywhere I went, just to be able to consume more of the story, should I have a spare moment.

Believe it or not, after all those pages, I want to know more!

Loved this book, it touched me deeply, and I recommend it to anyone searching for meaning in their painful, yet, ever-so-short life.

This is a tale of historical content, rape, war, death, the occult fringes, prostitution, loss, gain,hopeless times; and this is mostly a story about the many places in the heart, mind, body, and soul where love finds a way in. It is not a story for the weak or childish, nor to the prejudiced. I, however,highly recommend it to those with an open mind and an open soul.The story is long, yet the reader flies through this spellbinding story. Read it!

I have to admit that I was initially somewhat taken aback by the story of homosexual love that is prevelant in this book. However, as I continued to read I was overwhelmed by the pureness of the love expressed between two souls. Soul love is not a respecter of age, social station, nor gender. This book should serve us as a reminder of that. Heartily recommended.

The size of the book overwhelmed me at first, but once I managed to pick it up and start reading, I couldn't put it down again! Each page is full of vivid detail and the reader soon becomes a part of the story, living each moment with the main characters. This book is a definite must! The only thing I regret is taking so long to getting around to read it!

A fantastic book indeed!!! I really enjoyed it! The way it was written, the format, and the story itself was & is just wonderfully written. I am a very picky reader when it comes to books, & when I started to read this, WOW!!! I am still reading it, almost done,. but I just wanted to praise this book & tell ya'll out there that this is a bok that will definitely get your' interest!!!!!

A deeply moving experience of true love. A book which takes you and places you in the very heart of the story, making you escape into the world of characters and not feel intrusive but invited. I enjoyed this book greatly and highly recommend it to any one curious and captivated by love, history and past lives.

Excellent, excellent, excellent!! The book gave me perspective on my own life or lives, together with hope and joy that all may not be for nothing. This story of undying love in a world of turmoil touched me deeply. Also the fact that it's set in Russia - a country I have been obsessed with for a long time. The author's rendition of music, the ballet and poetry also gave me a new respect for and joy in these forms of art. I'll read the book again and again and again - it is sanity in a world gone mad. Or at least love in a world gone mad. All I can say is thank you, Maris, and thanks to what- or whomever brought me in contact with the circumstances for finding this book. It filled a need I didn't even know was there.

Death To Reach A Star is a thought provoking book. It explores the ideas and theories behind the belief in reincarnation. I liked the fullness of the characters which made the story believable. As I read this book I began to consider the possibilities set forth in its pages. The book made me go "hmmmmmm." To me this is what a good book should do if it does nothing else.

(...because one generally wants to rubberneck before the bodies grow cold, and the afternoon is wasted.)

I am recommending this book almost solely on the basis that the word "execrable" has spent some time floating around in my vocabulary, and I have yet to have an opportunity to use it and really mean it. J. Maris Gagnon, thank you for giving me this opportunity: Death To Reach a Star is the astounding, glorious, champagne-popping Gilded Age of execrability.

What we have here, oh gentle and terrified readers, is a sweepingly true account of one woman's past life as a Russian nobleman. A girlishly-beautiful, magically-endowed, sexually-persecuted Russian nobleman. (Doujinshi, anyone?) Poor Sasha, our beleagured young protagonist, is subjected to ankle-wrenching twists of fate and trouser-ripping threats to virtue worthy of the Perils of Pauline.* Communists! Incest! White slavery! Ballet musicians! Oh, help!

Heaven forfend that I should have lost your interest by now, oh weary bangers of the back button, but for fear that such might be the case, allow me to present to you some of the highlights of this - unique - specimen:

We find a dairymaid, upon being pressed with Our Hero's unwanted affections, exclaiming: "Unhand me, ye moron!" And pelting him with a seemingly endless supply of wooden buckets. Perhaps they had hammerspace in turn-of-the-century Russia?

We witness a party scene in which, in the space of two pages, "dessert" is changed into "desert" three times, in an interesting foray into surrealism and redundancy.

We finally reach the end of this 800+-page almighty clunker.

Please, readers, do yourself a favor. Glance at the cover, say to yourselves, "Garsh, a flute and some roses. Bet this is one o' them ROHmance novels," and then find yourself a nice Nabokov in a little valley somewhere, settle down and raise a family.

*For the unenlightened (IE, those who didn't read my grandmother's Big Book of the Movies when they were kids), The Perils of Pauline is an early 20th-century film that revolves around the adventures of a young woman who travels to many exotic and poorly-researched locations and ends up in a series of ridiculously precarious situations, most of which involve her hanging from airplanes or being menaced by Darkly Smoldering men.

My comments after reading Death to Reach a Star: It is difficult to put into words what this amazing book means to me. Having believed in a past few lives of my own for a very long time, I feel I can now , with firm conviction, face my critics and let them laugh or I shall tell to think whatever they want to think. I feel that is their loss not explore this wonderful world. I think we return to learn lessons for our current and future lives. Other books/articles I have explored have left me with some questions and concerns. This book I will passionately recommend to others. Thank you, Maris, where ever you are, for the opportunity to read such a masterpiece. I want to reread it again, two or three times.