Despite the adulation this book has received, and the fact that I thought that the first fifty pages of this book were the beginnings of a masterpiece, I began to see the author as ego-tripping and manipulative, loading the book with hip irony and heavy, hair-splitting religious questions that everyone somehow wants to believe are real and important. I just don’t see it. I do not trust this author, especially after considering the numerous above it all, flip, ego-tripping quotes from her web site and from interviews. As an example, in the afterword: “I am the author and outrank him.”

There is something about this book that truly disturbs me. The adulation for its “cleverness,” “breadth of knowledge,” and “imagination” all seem false. The first fifty pages are brilliant, the last thirty do a good job wrapping the novel up, but throughout the middle I was in a hurry to get this book over with.

People seem to want to believe that this book is raising important questions. But the glib statements of belief or disbelief in God, the characters mouthing the author’s philosophy, are telling, not showing. There is some “good showing” in this story but also way too much “telling.”

The religious questions are boring. Emilio and Anne are narcissists, always supremely concerned with what’s happening to them or in proving their world view. The author seems out to manipulate, pull heartstrings via the use of irony. The irony of the singing really being pornography. Emilio killing the little Runa girl. How ironic!

Ending a section of fiction is like cinching a rope, using a valid emotion or meaning. But too many authors cinch the ending of a section with irony, which is beginning to become a tired cliché. It’s cheap, easy, in tune with current American culture, and always seeks to be the flip and easy last word. Surely this is not what real life is all about.

The suspense over the condition of Emilio’s hands and the true meaning of the singing is contrived. That Sofia manages to trigger a planet-wide revolution with one statement about unequal numbers of oppressor versus oppressed seems a further irony--ain’t we humans just so bad that we can screw things up so badly?

If the singing is so important, it should have been described in much richer detail as opposed to “just can’t be compared to Earth singing.” I admit this would be a challenge, but other writers have spent a lot of time describing what music sounds like and means to them. The author may be thinking that a method of “little or no description” may evoke a special awe, but it definitely doesn’t work.

The Janata are barely described, and the Runa fall too easily back on “cat like.” These are shortcuts to describing something that should be truly alien.

The author lost me at Jimmy showing others his results and immediately these folks start thinking of asteroid travel, as if this were a Hardy Boys adventure. But:
•tIt would have taken a very long time to figure out what was received.
•tThese particular folks would not have been chosen, even by the Jesuits.
•tOther space agencies would have moved faster.
•tTheir contact methods are amateurish.

It would have been better to omit a science fiction plot entirely, or to go beyond into pure fantasy worlds. The author obviously knows a great deal in her paleoanthropology and linguistics fields, knows a lot about the Jesuits, but it seems that she “did research” for asteroids, Alpha Centauri, and other sf aspects, but not enough to have mastered it and made it real.

Emilio and Sofia seemed real, at least at first, until Emilio devolved into his boring religious bleatings and Sonia inexplicably cast off her childhood trauma and became a loving housewife, but the others just stand for the author’s thoughts, or are used as plot convenience. D.W. is an irritating cliché. Anne seems a flattering self-image for the author. Anne is always right, witty, and full of a false-sounding gusto that, again, is somehow always right. She has no shadow.

The two societies repeat the Eloi and Morlocks in Wells’ The Time Machine.

I don’t say a powerful writing could not have been brought out of this. But I feel this author is talking down to the reader, attempting to impress with her cleverness and her knowledge, and browbeating with her religious opinions. Why on earth would I want to suffer a repeat of that with the sequel?

If there ever was a definition for the word trigger, it's this book. This is the mother of all triggers. It has taken me more than a year to get through it because it has triggered the crap out of me in basically every way.

It's no secret that I hated this book, but not only because of the triggers. It's positively unreadable up to 30%, and still rather uninteresting up till maybe 50%. It gets better after that, but it's still incredibly, painfully slow. Even after it got more interesting, I still wasn't able to deal with all of the horrors and the anxiety it gave me with its super heavy foreshadowing.

And yeah, it's meaningful, but only by the end (I still had no idea what's it trying to tell me until it was almost the end), and it's probably no spoiler to say that the story is very, very sad, cause we've known from the start how it will end. I fully realize that triggers are not a good enough reason to give it two stars, because it's a meaningful critique of human nature and society, and all that, but - I'm giving it two stars for the dragging of the story and the quite needless torturing of the reader with how bad it's going to be - so much so that when you witness the bad, it suddenly doesn't even seem so bad cause you've been coming to terms with it since the start. *shudder*

Anyway, mark my words: if you have had any mental health trouble or anything at all to do with anxiety, you MUST skip this book. You won't handle it. I'd read a page and have a meltdown. It's VERY anxiety inducing. I won't even bother listing the triggers cause I struggle to think about a trigger that's NOT in this book, rather than one that is. Not worth it.

I had picked this up years ago due to all the terrific reviews, but when I started it, since it involves priests and such, I thought it was going to be a Christian book. So I'm really glad that a group decided to read this, because it is NOT a yah-yah Christian book at all. I would instead call it a spiritual book in that the journey involves time old questions, of faith, of God, of religion, of humanity. And altho most of the main characters are indeed Jesuits and so many questions and approaches do involve Catholicism, they were universal. And very very beautiful.

After I was done, I read that the author had left the Catholic church at age 15, and after 20 years of aetheism found herself re-examining questions of values, ethics, morality and religion upon the birth of her child. She found her drawn to Judaism and converted.

And that makes alot of sense, in that The Sparrow does speak about religion but in a completely open, tolerant way. You can also be an aetheist and derive much insight into the nature of what drives us toward spirituality to begin with. And that morality and goodness has its place even outside any type of established religion.

This was also one of the best first contact books - because The Sparrow is far more than just a question of what God is or isn't, but more so a fascinating study of anthropology. Of both humans and aliens. As a matter of fact, I'm sorry I started this review even discussing the religious aspect, because I would say the anthropology approach and insight is just as strong if not even a stronger force in the book.

Which also makes a ton of sense since the author was an anthropolist!

And I can not ignore the fact that the characters were some of the most complex, likable and developed you can find in any book.

I liked this book so much I immediately started reading its sequel, Children of God, upon completion. The Sparrow itself is very much a stand-alone book, but I was so engrossed with Emilio I HAD to know what happened to him.

Hmm. I might make this book a 5.

“All my books are historical novels. It's just that some of them take place in the future.” I love that quote by Mary Doria Russell.

I’m quite at a loss for words. What a startling story. It’s both tender, subtly amusing, and devastatingly brutal. It’s a patient study in humanity, in religion and faith and in losing that faith, in culture, character and friendship, with a slow build-up that by the end had me in knots and unable to both put down the book and continue reading.

The writing is full of subtext and underlying meaning, a skill I admire a lot in a writer. We’re constantly being teased but not offered all the information at once. It’s also simply beautifully written, with not a comma misplaced. The dialog is alive and organic, like how actual people would talk.

It isn’t an easy read, though, but neither was the journey these characters went on. This got under my skin and will sit in my bones for a long time.

The Sparrow is a manipulative and self-congratulatory sequence of words that can accurately be called a novel. The opening chapters recall H.G. Wells, as they seem intended to take general readers by the hand and guide them into a fantastic story. But soon it's clear that Russell really does think that she's invented science fiction and is very pleased about it.

The novel foreshadows a tragedy that is not revealed until the last few pages. Between the foreshadowing, the labyrinthian time-jumping plotting, and the main character's wide-eyed conviction that no one could possibly understand what's happened to him, Russell sets expectations so high that she couldn't possibly meet them. But that's no excuse for where this thing ultimately goes.

I was expecting a profound and intractable moral conundrum, or maybe a misunderstanding between the humans and aliens so weird I wouldn't see it coming. Instead, the protagonist is raped repeatedly by an alien composer. When he finally explains this to the Jesuits sitting in judgment of him, they make sympathetic noises and conclude that while he's obviously lost his dignity, being a victim of rape, it's technically not his fault.

And that's the book. The attitude toward rape is explicitly stated by characters and implicit in the story itself. And where the confession would, in a better book, be the beginning of the character's story, here it's the conclusion. That's because Russell is only interested in the trauma as a means to shock the reader. 400 pages of foreshadowing, and then - POW! Were you shocked? Yes? The End.

It's thin, it's cheap, it's manipulative, and holy crow is it disgusting. The punchline is that The Sparrow pretends to be a deep and important and complex novel about faith and morality. Don't be fooled. There's nothing there.

Wonderful book! I was totally hooked from the very start. Although the main character is a Jesuit, I didn't find the religion heavy or predominant. It was well balanced with science which is the impression you get from the author herself so it isn't surprising.

Mary Doria Russell has joined our book club for a Q&A about this novel which has given lots of great insight into this brilliant piece of science fiction.

The journey is magnificent, beautiful and heartbreaking. Since the story is presented as both the present and past timeline, you know some of what is to come in the past timeline.

The alien cultures and species are fascinating and so brilliantly thought out. I was surprised by the ending, but it was so logical I almost feel I should have been able to guess.

I can't recommend this enough. Simply brilliant!

27 stars. I can't review this book because it broke me. Magnificent. A masterpiece. Instant favorite. Why had I never heard of it before a friend said to me these three insane words: "Jesuits. In. Space."

I love when I skim through pages of reviews of a book and they are nearly all either 5 stars or one star. Only a really good book produces that range of opinion! This is a really good book.

The Sparrow is science fiction with class. It is well written, there is a satisfying amount of science fiction and then there is a whole lot more besides. Russell's greatest talent is in characterisation. I enjoyed every single one of the characters in this book and when I had to put it down and do other things I missed them and could not to wait to pick the book up again. I loved the humour in the early days when Emilio and Anne and George first get together and I nearly cried in the later stages several times.

A lot of people comment on the fact that the book is about religion. I suppose it is but not in a way that any particular belief is pushed at the reader. Others find some parts confronting. Again it is just part of the story and the author handles it with great skill.

I see there is a sequel. I will be reading it very soon!

This is an extraordinary, unique story, with outstanding characterization - you'll come to know and care for the characters deeply! The audio narration by David Colacci is excellent - great distinct voices.

The book does take some time to set the stage and flush out the characters, so you'll need some patience through the first 100 pages or so. But it's worth it!! The story probes some deep questions on humanity, the universe, belief, faith and more. There were so many quotable thoughts that I definitely want to buy a paper copy and re-read this one!

The most difficult thing about reading Mary Doria Russell’s books is just starting them. If you don’t like war stories you aren’t going to want to read A Thread of Grace. If you don’t like westerns, you’ll be tempted to avoid Doc or Epitaph. And if you are not big on science fiction, the descriptions of The Sparrow and its sequel, Children of God, aren’t going to get you excited. That’s where I was when a coworker first recommend it almost ten years ago. She described it as a story about a first contact space mission financed by Jesuits. My response was something along the lines of “Oookayy, what else has she written?” I read and enjoyed A Thread of Grace but continued to put off reading Sparrow. Finally, eight years later, I picked up a copy and started reading it. Within a day I was thumping myself on the forehead asking how I could possibly have put off this excellent book for so long.

Bottom line: Sparrow is the best book I have read in the last decade, if not longer. It has a wonderful cast of characters and deals with a wide variety of subjects with intelligence, grace and humor. These subjects include faith, anthropology, sociology, grief, guilt, one's sense of duty, and people’s responses to trauma. Remember, I told you that it is difficult to describe this book and make it should appealing but everyone I know who has given it a try has been very impressed. There is no book that I would recommend over this one. Read it.

I read this author’s A Thread of Grace with my real world book club and I really enjoyed it and this looked interesting so I put this book on my to-read shelf because of that, even though that book is historical fiction and this book is science fiction/speculative fiction. An online book club inspired me to actually choose it to read from my very long to-read shelf and I am so grateful to have read it.

I don’t know the bible so I didn’t know why the title was The Sparrow until a few pages from the end of the book, but then I loved the title selected.

This book is heartbreaking, devastating, horrifying, and emotionally difficult. It’s also fascinating and engrossing and captivating (ok, they all mean pretty much the same thing but I can’t stress it enough.) The story and characters are incredibly memorable and it’s a really well crafted story so, despite some flaws, I’m giving it 5 stars and not only 4 stars.

This is my kind of science fiction: character driven and thought provoking.

I felt attached to and cared about the fate of virtually all of the major characters and there are many.

I read an edition where there’s an interesting author interview in the back and discussion questions also. The interview was superb and helped me understand even more the author’s point of view.

The story takes place from 2019-2060. It’s about a Jesuit mission to another planet that takes place because of signs of intelligent life in the form of music heard from a solar system not too many light years away from earth.

I thought it was brilliant the way the story is told, building up to what felt like a crescendo, and going back and forth in time and place, and pertinent that it was music that brought the earthlings to this foreign planet.

Of interest from the author interview is that she grew up Catholic until age 15, then she became an atheist, and then when she became a mother she converted to Judaism. One of my favorite characters is a Jewish woman and another is a somewhat agnostic woman the author says she most identified with.

I guess the book is about faith and religious experience but I read it from my own point of view, as all readers do with all books, so those themes took somewhat of a back seat for me. I look at life so differently from the central character Emilio Sandoz but he is a very compelling and understandable character.

As a Jewish woman but not a religious or spiritual person, while there’s a lot of talk about G-d and religion I was able to find meaning in the philosophizing in the book and consider this book more about human (and sentient being) nature, which I know has to do with my own point of view.

I thought it was a almost a treatise on inter-cultural understanding, and misunderstanding, and even for those who don’t like science fiction readers could look at it as an exploration of relationships between human cultures or among different species. I have no problem suspending disbelief as these relationships could easily take place on earth with earth’s species of animals (including humans) and plants. It says a lot about what happens when we don’t understand one another or cannot empathize adequately with one another and when, for whatever reason, there’s some barrier to communication.

For me as a vegan, it made me further contemplate the commonalities among humans and other sentient beings, and about sentient beings who can speak and those who cannot. I found myself considering the ability to empathize vs. manipulate and use/harm, etc. The central character in the book is a Jesuit priest who’s also multi-lingual and language and communication are so crucial to this book’s story.

This would be a good book for my vegan book club, which is a book club section where we read mostly novels, occasionally non-fiction, but not animal rights or vegan/vegetarian books, but this book could spark much discussion about veganism too. (I just added it to our “future book suggestions” shelf at our book club page.) It’s a terrific book club book. There’s so much substance and different subjects to discuss yet it’s not a challenging read; it’s an easy read actually.

It’s not next on my to-read list but I am now eager to read Children of God, which is a sequel to The Sparrow. I’m a bit afraid I won’t like it but I’m too curious to know what happens next with Emilio Sandoz and the interactions to come between the inhabitants on Earth and Rakhat, and interested to know how Mary Doria Russell continues this story.

A good book at times even a painful book. I bounced between 3 and 4 stars a few times. This is a read to enter into advisedly. It is painful, but the story is good.

I could actually call it beautiful at times, beautiful, challenging, thought provoking, and of course, painful. It is as I said hard to rate. close to 3 but at times almost a 5...so 4.

No more or I'll give a spoiler (or more than one). Don't look for a space opera here. Look for a deep and thoughtful story asking questions that may or may not be worth considering, that may or may not be comfortable.

Christians (espically Roman Catholic Christians) will see that the writer is attempting to address Christian topics here in a science fiction setting. I'll leave it to you how well it's done.