Richard Parker Is UnforgettableVery rarely does a character stay with you for life. But this story is one that I will carry with me.Life of Pi starts in India with a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel, also known by his nickname Pi. His family historically has operated a zoo but decides to relocate to Canada. Things don’t go quite as expected when the ship carrying them to Canada sinks. Pi spends 227 days searching for land with a tiger named Richard Parker.Parallels to Real LifeDid you know that J...

The beginning is rough.It's all like - Why do we keep going on and on about religion? Where's the boat? Where's the tiger?Stop and smell the roses. *Life of Pi* will get to the tiger part when it wants to. Young Pi ( Piscine "Pi" Patel ) spends the first part of the book joining the Christian, Muslim and Hindu faiths. It's not a matter of he can't choose a religion - it's that he is able simultaneously believe in all of them. The philosophical musings and religious prose provide an extremely int...

Rawr. Piscine Molitor Patel is a young Indian boy traveling with his family aboard a freighter through the Pacific, carrying their precious zoo animals to America for relocation. One stormy night, the ship suddenly sinks, and he ends up in a small lifeboat with several of their animals, including a huge Bengal tiger. This is the tale of his extraordinary adventure, and how he managed to survive for months stranded in the middle of the ocean with little to no resources, accompanied by one of the ...

‘Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it - a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.’ And sometimes stories are so beautiful that souls have fallen in love with them – a tender, quiet love that nurtures what it can.This is one of those stories.It's a story that will always have a special place in my heart. It's one of the only books that has ever made me re-evaluate my beliefs on faith. It helped me further realize the impact and importance of the connection bet...

I was *extremely* surprised by this book. Let me tell you why (it's a funny story): I originally picked it up in Danish. The cover said "Pi's Liv" (Pi's Life), but I totally missed the apostrophe. So, I read it as "Pis Liv" (Piss Life) and honestly thought, "Well, that's an interesting title, I guess I'll give it a shot." And so I did. And… what I read was absolutely not what I was expecting (I figured it was a gritty story about a kid growing up poor and homeless). It wasn't until I looked up ...

Life of Pi was a fairly engaging story in terms of plot and character, but what made it such a memorable book, for me at least, was its thematic concerns. Is it a "story that will make you believe in God," as Pi claims? I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I would recommend it to people who enjoy thinking about the nature of reality and the role of faith in our lives. If you're looking for thought-provoking book reviews, this is a great place to start. To me, the entire thrust of the book is the i...

I found a lot of *Life of Pi* incredibly tedious. I tend to avoid Man Booker Prize winners – they make me a little depressed. The only Carey I haven’t liked won the Booker (Oscar and Lucinda), I really didn’t like the little bit of Vernon God Little I read, and I never finished The Sea despite really liking Banville’s writing. So, being told a book is a Booker winner tends to be a mark against it from the start, unfortunately. I’m going to have to assume you have read *Life of Pi*, as if I don’...

It's not that *Life of Pi* was awful, it's just that I honestly wish the tiger had eaten Pi, so the story wouldn't exist. Seriously.

I slogged through half of Yann Martel's *Life of Pi*, feeling impatient the entire time, skipping whole pages. Then I had an epiphany: I didn't *have* to keep going. That realization was about as close to a spiritual moment as I could hope to get from this book. If you're looking for thought-provoking book reviews, maybe skip this one.

It's not just that Life of Pi is particularly moving (though it is). It's not even just that it's written with language that is both delicate and sturdy all at once (which it is, as well). And it's certainly not that Yann Martel's vividly descriptive passages are so precise that you begin to feel the salt water on your skin (even though they are). It's that, like Bohjalian and Byatt and all the great Houdinis of the literary world, in the last few moments of your journey – after you've felt the ...

Sift a pinch of psychology with a scant tablespoon of theology, add one part *Island of the Blue Dolphins* with two parts philosophy, mix with a pastry blender or the back of a fork until crumbly but not dry, and there you have Pi and his lame-o, cheesed-out boat ride to enlightenment. Honestly, I liked the beginning of *Life of Pi* by Yann Martel – loved Pi's declaration and renaming of himself, his adding religions like daisies to a chain, and was really digging the family as a whole, and then...