Northern Lights: A Novel

I appreciate this guy. He’s turned full-in “literary.” I went to college with a Nam Vet who wanted to grow up to be this sort of author. Love this stuff.

A good read. I got this for my senior English research paper and it was just as good as the other books I’ve ready by him.

I never skied cross country nor got lost in the north woods, but O'Brien took me there.

Tim O'Brien is an award-winning writer and I have really enjoyed some of his other novels. This is his first, written in 1975. I recommend reading Tim O'Brien, but don't start with this one. You may get turned off early and miss out on something really good. After slogging through the first half of this book, I almost pitched it. Nothing happens, even when there is a big buildup to make you think something is finally going to happen. The writing style is poor. There is endless repitition, uninspired description "It was very hot," bad grammar and other irritants.THEN, I read the second half and was plunged into an action-adventure-survival drama with two brothers fighting for their lives in a whited-out northern Minnesota forest in January. The style didn't improve, but I didn't care. In many ways this book seemed to me the forerunner of his bestseller In the Lake of the Woods, which I highly recommend. Don't pass this one by, either. Skip or skim the first part if you feel the way I did. He gets a lot better as he goes along.

I’ve read all of his work, and thoroughly enjoyed most, however this is easily his worst novel. A combination of early career writing, no discernible plot or action, thoroughly unlikeable (and unrelatable) characters topped off with a truly obnoxious theme or characters repeating their comments 2, 3, 4 times, over and over and over. Painful to finish this one. Highly recommend his other novels however (Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried, In The Lake of the Woods).

Tim O Brien shows how Viet Nam Inc interacts with the rest of the world and how it continues to effect it

great book

I was enthralled by the harsh reality of survival in the wilderness with only skis and a backpack. I kept wanting to anticipate how the two brothers would be rescued, but more days of struggle increased the tension and delayed my resolution to the extent I could not put this book down.

Read his other books this seems to be padded out

Boring, hard to get into, left it before i read 100 pages. I wouldn't recommend it