Its not a bad book but John Irving has done much of the same stuff in other better books. If you want to read an Irving novel don't start here.

It is the story of Jack Burns life from childhood to early middle age. The book is divided into five sections and some are more interesting than others. The first part in the Northern European countries probably the most interesting as Jack and his mother go looking for his father. The next section about Jack's school days in New England are kinda creepy because of the sexual abuse the suffers at a young age. His first abuser a girl named Emma who is over 5 years older than he is becomes his best friend over time and it is their exploits in the movie business that takes up the next part of the book. Once Emma and Jack's mother are off stage and Jack works with a therapist to understand his childhood and the real story of his parents relationship the story wanes. New characters pop up and disappear and in the end I didn't really care what happened I just wanted the story to end.

In fiction-writing classes, a tenet receiving much emphasis is that you can’t craft a compelling story around a passive character. John Irving, a grad of the famed University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, must have missed school the day(s) that rule was taught, because the central character of Irving’s “Until I Find You” practices passivity as a way of life. Everything -- an itinerant youth, lots of sex, movie stardom -- happens TO Jack Burns, not because of his actions. Eventually, a reader wants to shake the guy and say: “Dude, get a life!” Add an overdose of research material about historic church organs and tattooing (Jack’s absentee father is an organist and a tattoo junkie) and you have a less than riveting novel. Still, I have to give Irving credit for a writing style that lures you along. I plowed through all 820 pages of “Until I Find You.”

It’s a book of my life... literally! I was looking for a love of my life when I started reading it. I could not put it away during the first 400 pages. But then something happened, I made some life changing decisions and was too busy to read.
I ended my relationship, changed my job, moved in with my girlfriends and shortly after met my husband. Moved again, had two kids, while this book patiently waited on my bedside table. I got busier and busier, took it with me on several holidays (it traveled a lot!) but found it hard to read with the kids running around.
Now (13 years later!!!) the kids are bigger, I can have ‘me time’ and lost myself in reading again.
Today not only I finished the book but also closed a big chapter of my life. I have found all the answers!
Highly recommended but what else could you hear from John Irving fan?

I am a huge, unabashed fan girl of John Irving's prose style. It's somehow formal while remaining accessible at the same time. Stuffy while funny. Distressingly highbrow but yet...readable. Something about that dichotomy draws me to his books again and again. He remains one of the few authors whose books I will even re-read.

However, that said, this book (that I had the pleasure of listening to, narrated by Author Morey on an Audible version not a CD but "Audible version" wasn't an option to choose here) seems to have gotten lost somewhere between messages about unrequited, if a little obsessive, love; single parenthood (in a "doing the best that you can" sort of way); and, strangest of all child molestation and sexual abuse.

Yes, I'll admit to falling for Jack Burns. Every one seemed to. It didn't hurt that his name got said (spit out) at least a million times during the narrative. People couldn't help saying it even when addressing him directly, which was annoying at first, until I got used to it. I also really enjoyed the history of the tattoo profession and details of that world--something Irving is always great at: drawing me into a new world. I adored how Jack rose into Hollywood fame by taking transvestite roles because he was just so dang pretty. I also enjoyed ticking off the usual Irving-isms: wrestling, prostitutes, small people, New Hampshire.

However, by the end, I have to admit that I was only going through the motions of listening--that I wasn't about to give up on a John Irving novel just because it had (horrors) lost me chapters ago in terms of giving a rip about the story or the characters anymore.

Jack coming full circle, emotionally speaking and finally having a healthy, normal, appropriate relationship with a woman (his sister) was a nice touch for a guy as scarred by women as he was. I also enjoyed the narrator's performance very much--which is as much a part of my reasons for finishing it as anything.

If you come across it in the library and are an Irving fan, you should grab this one. Otherwise, take a pass.

3.5⭐️

I enjoyed the first section of this book, which seems almost like a return to the Irving of 'The World According to Garp' or 'The Hotel New Hampshire', about the young Jack and his tattooist mother wandering through assorted European cities searching for his elusive father. However, I feel the book deteriorates disastrously after that - the writing style seems to go downhill and there is a lot about child abuse which I just didn't want to go on reading.

Hmm... feeling mixed as to a review for this book. On one hand it had some brilliant passages and I liked the exploration that how we interpret life and remember childhood events might not quite be the real reality of the situation. However Irving really didn’t need to use 900 pages to explore this and at times this book felt pointlessly dragged out. I was disappointed that the characters weren’t quite so well developed as in his other novels, even Jack the central character felt a bit flat somehow. While I do wonder if the flatness of Jack and the lack of his own personality was to portray a result of having so many traumatic experiences, unusual upbringing and influence by others as well as taking acting roles being what dictated his life rather than his own character, it left me without much emotional involvement in the book. Not Irving’s best work but still a thought provoking read. Might have had a higher rating if I hadn’t so recently finished ‘The Cider House Rules’ which I really enjoyed.

John Irving’s writing is a joy to read. With each book I am amazed anew at his skill in weaving a wide spectrum of people, locales, dialects, nationalities, and situations together in ways that take readers through the gamut of emotion that ends with not just satisfaction, but a lingering love for the flawed but endearing characters that he has expertly brought to life. While this book has some of his most unusual and eccentric characters, the story is compelling and fun and heartwarming and heart-wrenching from start to finish. This isn’t for the prudish, but otherwise I would heartily recommend it.

I'm impressed. The writing style is very simple and direct but is still able to convey all the nuances that are essential to this novel. The characters are fully developed. They ought to be, after 820 pages. This thing is thorough. I liked the chronological account of Jack's life combined with the recognition of the mutable nature of memory. Telling the story IS the therapy. It's all about gray area, about perception. There is a fine line between sanity and insanity, between acting and true emotion, between male and female, even between nurturing and abuse. It's about beauty and forgiveness and obsession and loss - kind of epic stuff. It might be distasteful but it's masterfully and honestly explored.

Perhaps putting this on my read shelf is a bit misleading as I couldn't finish it. This was a book that we were reading for my in-person book club and only one person finished it. She liked it but did not think it was nearly as good as other works by Irving.

I did read 200 pages but in that period did not find the characters interesting. I enjoyed a few of the side characters but then once Jack was in school I just couldn't continue.

I am so very happy that I have read other Irving books which deal with many of the same themes, have truly bizarre things happen but are just so much more worth it.

I won't be returning to this to finish it.

When I first met with my thesis advisor in graduate school and told him I wanted to do my thesis on John Irving, he told me two things. The first was a sort of snobby view of Irving and all his work, which was, my advisor said, "the practice of writing the same book over and over again."

The next comment was full of envy and the desire to do exactly what Irving had done with Garp and The Cider House Rules. "If only I could do that myself," he said.

Well, yeah. And the truth is, I don't care what John Irving writes about, though I am in pretty clear and known territory with Until I Find You. Prostitutes, transvestites, absent fathers, controlling mothers, writers, wrestling, strangely strong and unique sibling relationships, and a lot of sex, death, and sorrow.

Love it.

John Iriving is smart and funny and a wonderful writer. I listened to this novel, and I was so sad when it was over. I had a moment of despair, really. the reader is amazing, but the story is deep, rich, interesting and though completely bizarre, true.

This is the most personal book I have read of Irving's and I am a huge fan. I've read everything save one book, the one that was a very successful movie.

"Until I Find You" is a tough book to get into. The first few chapters are painstaking and seem laborious but you cannot put the book aside. Then in a single moment it becomes essential to know the story, know what happens to this little boy, because you care about him in his over-the-top quirky yet very sad yet oblivous existence.

For an Irving reader this is an oddity because though his empathy, poignancy and humor are all there, and you do laugh and cry aloud, his usual snarky and wonderful laugh mechanisms are not in this book. There is plenty to laugh at but the humor is softer, sweeter, more mindful. You get the sense that he is not creating laughter as armor to defend someone from harming him; rather he is using it to make you love these characters even more.

I loved "...Own Meany" best before I read "Widow for One Year," but now I am unsure Irving can top this very personally felt and lovingly written book.