Love, love love this book. Does anyone know if there will be a second book with the way it ended?

This is actually a 3.5 for me, but I just couldn't give it 4 stars.

While I thought it was amusing that Patterson really nailed the "ugh he's such a jerk", I just couldn't. We were going so strong until about the 85% mark. At that point I wasn't happy with how things were going...but I had come this far and needed to see this out to the end.

All in all, if you're looking for a quick, amusing read, I would happy to recommend this.

This book is just terrible. A story about two virgins about to give birth, we find out one will be to the Saviour and one will be to the Beast. But which one? Well, lets see, one of the girls is a rich, white, blonde, debutante, from America and getting loads of press. The other a poor girl in a poor Irish town who is abused by the locals and gets maybe 15 pages in the whole book. While there are a couple of twists, its not good. The characters are flat, the plot weak and drawn out by repeated 'oh no!'s and chapter ends. This is nothing more then Christian sensationalism with a lot of jump cuts, and former nun-turned cop-turned private detective, and priest being love to provide some romantic tension.

I am glad I was able to pick up the early Patterson novel. I thought it was a real page turner. I found the characters realistic and the story almost believable.

This was my first experience reading anything by James Patterson, and this book definitely did not disappoint. I desperately want to read more by this man known online as the "Master of Suspense". I was hesitant to buy this book from the store, purely because I had never read anything by Patterson, but I finally got my hands on a copy when my local library brought it onto the shelves - and I wish I read it sooner!

I love, love, loved his writing style! It was not simple, but it was not absurdly complex either - the language used and the sentence structures were perfect for creating suspense and moving the story along. Furthermore, I enjoyed the various perspectives presented throughout the text - it was not only the protagonist, Anne, who had their point of view shown, but all characters did in one chapter or another.
The chapters in this book are incredibly short, and it put my in the vicious cycle of: "I have things to do but this chapter is only a few pages long... so is this one... and this one... just a few more..."

While this novel does revolve heavily around religion, I myself am not religious and found the plot to be immensely enjoyable. I'm not of faith, but Patterson has such a way with words that I was hooked - he is so suspenseful and mysterious, and he authored this incredibly eerie, creepy narrative that has so many twists and turns, and finally a chilling ending.
I never knew what to expect from this novel. The prophecy of a baby of God and a baby of the Devil had me trying to uncover who would birth each child - and my initial thoughts were turned into new theories, I never had a solid conjecture in my mind regarding who would birth which child due to Patterson's extreme plot twists and crazy possibilities.

I feel as though some of the mysteries of the story were not explained, and it has left me wanting more (which in my opinion, a good book should make you want more. Always).
I would not object to a second novel, and the riveting ending definitely puts the narrative in a position to potentially have a sequel.
Whether or not another book is published and this becomes a series, one thing is for certain, I need to read more of James Patterson's works ASAP.

A beautiful story!

First time reading Patterson's. What a book. Wow.

As a big fan of this writer, I will always be interested with his novels. But this one is yet another different output from JP. It wasn't just any modern take of the perennial story of the Immaculate Conception, sprinkled with twists and turns of a typical James Patterson suspense-thriller. What was quite surprising for me was that it also had a touch of fantasy and paranormal in it, like people suddenly appearing and disappearing, miraculous and infernal phenomena, and the like. It wasn't the first time that I read a fantasy-themed James Patterson novel, yet I wasn't quite expecting how some of the events turned out in the story. That must be the reason why I find some scenes a bit weird.

Nevertheless, this one still ended up as enjoyable, as usual. It still has the same trademark of James Patterson by the end of the story: those explosive, you've-never-seen-it-coming kind of revelation/s. And the very last chapter was such a very impressive way of how to wrap things up for this kind of novel.

Cradle and All is the first book I’ve read by James Patterson and this may be brutal, but I wasn’t impressed. So originally this book was published in the early 80s but I stumbled upon a new edition in the teen section the other day when I was at the bookstore. Yes you heard me, THE TEEN SECTION.



Yeah, I really don’t know if the young adult section is really the best way to market this book unless they did some serious editing. The book wasn’t very sexual, but the scenes that were, were violent and graphic and just plan weird. This is without a doubt an upper teen read at best. (**I read the original edition**)

The book overall had an interesting plot (especially the end, I wanted more of that ending) but was poorly executed. The writing was choppy, going back and forth in different narratives and perspectives between many different characters. Characters were introduced with a lot of focus put on them only to be mentioned once or twice and never to return. Around the 50% mark the book seemed to drag making little to no progress in the story.

I’m bummed. I’ve heard wonderful things about James Patterson and this book had so much potential. I hope the new edition has a bit more structure and focus.

great ending such a twist

Was war das, bitte? Nach den ersten 10 Seiten habe ich bereits darauf gehofft, dass sich dieser grauenhaft plumpe, unelegante Stil nicht durch das komplette Buch ziehen würde - er tat es. Die Geschichte... richtig schlecht gemacht, ohne Spannung, ohne Raffinesse... Nach 150 Seiten habe ich zum ersten Mal mit dem Gedanken gespielt, es abzubrechen... Ich hätte es tun können, denn auch danach hat sich der Roman zu keiner Zeit zum Pageturner entwickelt, im Gegenteil - es hat mich viel Überwindung und Mühe gekostet, bis zum Ende durchzuhalten.

It was ok - a bit simple. Not a lot of character development in truth, and often major twists were communicated in about a paragraph. I don't know, I just didn't think it was well written.