Bel Canto

By: Ann Patchett

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Winner of the Orange Prize • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century

""Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book."" —Washington Post Book World

New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

Patchett's lyrical prose and lucid imagination makeBel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.

Remarkable depiction of the Stockholm Syndrome

Patchett does an amazing job of drawing us into this drama of the Stockholm syndrome. From the terror of the first attack through the developing personal relationships between the tribes. Despite the centering of the Red Cross negotiator and the priest, I found myself being fooled into a sense of timelessness just like the characters.

The themes of timelessness, music and lives lost to business very very compelling.

So-So

The story line is unique, and characters interesting, but like another reviewer stated, the characters were unbelievably obsessed with opera, and were unrealistically unconcerned with their separated loved ones. The book drags in parts, but the narrator was very good. The ending came abruptly and was a little unbelievable. Overall, on okay read.

Too good

It has been three weeks since I finished this book. The memory haunts me so much that I've not been able to listen to another book for fear that it won't be as good. The author weaves a story that will bind you to the characters and when the book ends you'll be unable to shake the memory of each and everyone of personas that make up this tale. At first the plot seems unlikely, but after an hour, I was completely convinced that it was all true. You won't waste your time with this book.

Outstanding

How do you not give this book 5 stars?? From the start to the finish I loved the prose, the story, the storyteller. At times while sitting in my car listening on my headphones I wept freely for the passion and love this story possessed. If you care not for opera, you shouldn't let that dissuade you from this book. An intense passion for life is discovered in the story and you are swept in the current of emotions. Sweet and satisfying, I expect to go back and listen to the story again and again - perhaps every year for the rest of my life. I will carry this lovely novel with me all my days. Thanks to all who were responsible in any small part for the bringing of this book to market.

Slow...the end?

I struggled with this book.

Love Ann Patchett and had just finished The Dutch House which I loved. I also enjoyed Commonwealth.

The ending was abrupt and without explanation. I don’t know how these two ended up together and the Author does not explain. I will watch the movie next but would not recommend this book- do read her other books.