Customer Reviews

Hot Springs

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

 

 

A strong 4.
Quirky characters (including a child) take off on a hasty road trip, which certainly made me think of The Flying Troutmans, as well as Little Miss Sunshine.
Contrary to opinions on another website, I think the author does a very good job of making the major characters feel real, thus making the reader interested in what will happen to them, flawed as they are.
Maybe the plot isn't totally believable, relying on too much coincidence to move things along. And we don't get fully into the mind of the adoptive mother right away, so it's hard to understand why she didn't go right to the police, but I think that gives us a clue to her character; she knew what had happened, and was practicing what she preached and believed. Of course, this is set in contrast to her hypocritical husband, who like some other lesser characters was more one dimensional. It might have taken many pages and subplots to bring them out more, and that might have detracted from the main story.
Overall, an entertaining and heartfelt read.

I actually read this book in one sitting. It took me about seven hours, but I was sick and had nothing to do so I plucked this off of my "to read" pile and had at it. I totally lost myself in this story. There was just something that resonated in it for me.

It is pretty much about a young woman who kidnaps her own child five years after she gave her up for adoption. It's an on the run story, a finding yourself story, just a life story, really, but with very real seeming characters populating it. Bernice, the young woman, and her boyfriend both seem like people I've met, and really everyone else, even the people who are only there for two pages, are fleshed out and believable. And there's more than a smattering of humor as well. The only let down in my view was the last page. I thought it wrapped up oddly. Everything else was engaging and felt true within the context of the story (yes, even the adoptive mom's choices. They make sense for her character after you get to know her).

I was surprised to see another reviewer here say they put it down after the first 50 pages or so. I just found it so interesting and rewarding. I'm not even joking when I write that it made me laugh AND cry. I credit my emotional response to the author's sense of relationships and despair along with a keen ability to set a place and time. I had a similar response when I read the Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks (don't worry -- nothing like THAT happens here). I was drawn in.

Anyway, I loved it and I highly recommend!

As an adoptive mom with a history involving plenty of birth-mother drama and, yes, even a missing child, I was cautious when I began Becker's book. But once I got to know his characters, I found them so believable and the situation so absurd and lovely that I was happy to be taken along for the ride. His style is relaxed but never dull -- laid back is probably the best way to describe it -- and yet it has a maturity that takes into acount the whole human spectrum of personal love and loyalty. The book is very good at considering how secrets of our past can drive us to strange behavior, and certain unexpected details in his scenes are so funny they'll make your day.

Everyone is flawed and everyone is fascinating in HOT SPRINGS. It is a book that hooks you in from the very first sentence and keeps you hanging on until the very end.

fairly well written, it kept my interest all the way through and was a quick read. but i just didn't buy the central premise of this novel: that a mother would avoid calling the police when her child was kidnapped. the author tried to explain this plot hole away by implying that the extremely pious mother believed god would bring her daughter back to her... and that she was not calling thje police because she already knew who had the child. umm, that's all the MORE reason to call the cops! clearly the mother didn't call the police because that's the only way the rest of the novel's plot would work. shoddy construction to hinge your entire plot around such a huge unlikelihood, and i couldn't get past it.

The story was unique and each character was interesting - each character had some weird qualities which made the book more fun to read and lead to several bizzare scenes (that's a compliment). In general though, I thought the story and characters were good but I thought the writing was great which defintely made the book a good read. I recommend reading Hot Springs.

This books begins well with interesting characters in a quirky situation. But halfway through it falls apart. Long sections of boring, repetitious thinking by the characters, highly unbelievable events and a wishy washy conclusion led me to skim some parts. I never felt I really understood Bernice. And what's with her name? No one her age is named Bernice, nor did I believe for a minute that her family was Jewish. The characters meandered around the country and the book meandered around its subject.

Becker once again plays all the requisites: brains, music, sweep, intimacy, humor, a keen eye, patience, impatience, learning and compassion.

I really wanted to like this book. I kept reading but finally gave up. It just did not grab me. I just found it tedious.