I never really became engrossed in this, or really cared about the characters as much as I hoped I would. I ended up skimming paragraphs and had to make myself finish. Maybe I should have just quit when I lost interest and tried it again another time. Regardless it was entertaining and a quick read. My first book by this author. My husband enjoyed one of his books and so I had high hopes for a great story. I was dissappointed that it seemed so unlike what I had envisioned. I loved The Horse Whisperer and thought the author of the book that inspired it would be more in tune with emotional drama. Again, since a lot of folks have enjoyed this author, I'm sure it was me and not the book.....too many books waiting to be read that I am anxious to get to, so maybe i was a little less forgiving of this one.

I don't enjoy giving books a one star rating, but I honestly didn't enjoy this novel at all. I knew I wouldn't like it after page 70 or so and yet I kept reading because I hate to abandon a book. I was hoping the story would grown less sentimental and cliche as it progressed but it actually got worse.

There is an audience for every book and I'm definitely not the right kind of audience for this novel.
I don't see the point in listing every thing that irked me the wrong way because I would be here all day. I can understand some people might like this book, but I found nothing in it for me. I'm not a romance reader, so maybe that is it. This book is basically a love triangle between two smoke jumpers and best friends ( Ed and Connon) and Julie. Ed is a diabetic piano player who never did any sports and was teased all his life for his feminine hobbies and interests. Ed one day decides he likes the outdoors and becomes a smoke jumper during his summer- not unbelievable at all. Connor is Ed's best friend but he falls madly in love with Ed's girlfriend Julia as soon as he sees her. Naturally Julia feels the same way about Connor, despite loving Ed and being the perfect girlfriend to him.

Seriously, Julia is one of the most stupid female protagonist I have ever came across. She is supposedly an educator of some kind, but she thinks it is a great idea to drag a minority (half native American)abused fifteen year old girl Skye across wildness with a group of problematic seventeen year old boys (many of whom are recovering addicts and criminals). The idea is that peer pressure and wildness helps. How exactly? Why anyone would think that putting a fifteen year old girl in wildness with a group of young criminals with a lot of opportunities to assault her, will result in anything else than an assault on her is beyond me.

Julia is clearly familiar with the fact Skye was abused all her life, but does little to actually help Skye except to take her on some quest where they all cry and become instantly close in the most unbelievable way. When this abused girl is clearly assaulted by one of the boys while they were alone (why was that even an option?) and returns to the group traumatized, Julia does NOTHING! Well, not exactly nothing, Julia makes it possible for the boy to insult and make fun of Skye in front of the whole group....and then it is a big surprise that the girl runs away in the wilderness. That isn't good enough for Julia for there are more child lives to risk in this novel! Taking a child into a war zone because she cannot wait for a certain person to call her back is another 'genius' part on Julia's part. Does the author really think that women are this stupid?

Don't get me even started on the way this author kills his characters every time when it is convenient for the plot. I call it lazy writing!

I imagine that Nicholas Evan’s would have reached a much larger crowd if he dumbed this book down, however I think the story would have sorely lacked had it lost the beautiful imagery of the settings and activities taking place in this novel. It may be because I, myself, have grown up in Boise and have spent time in Missoula that my heart ached for the romance of the aesthetic.
This is not a quick or easy read, it is also not as predictable or basic as modern readers seem to prefer, however the adventure is wonderful and I loved that this novel followed the characters through no doubt around 15 years of their life. Often books follow a normal plot line of excitement however it is unrealistic that the events that mold us for a lifetime happen in such short spans and I loved to watch the characters grow through both love and tragedy.

n  n

This story started out promising. A cute romance develops between two likeable characters and then a smokin hot "complication" gets introduced. From there it went all down hill. There needed to be more of everything, more passion, more tension, and more heartache. I found what I was reading to be less than gripping and I always found a reason to do something else other than read it. This story is about a blind man's wife falling in love with his best friend. How can you bore your readers with a plot like that??? Not only was I bored, but the ending was just awful! Nicholas Evans made his reader yearn for a relationship between characters that was wrong. I wanted the best friend to get the girl, but how could I wish such a betrayal on a blind man who loved and needed his wife and was so inspirational? I didn't feel good about it. I wanted something to happen to make the husband less likeable, or I wanted him to leave and find a woman who could really love him back the way he deserved. Instead the husband dies and the best friend comes in and takes his place. Was this the ending I was rooting for? Is that suppose to be a happy ending? I thought it was awful. I felt like the author wanted me to be happy the husband died. How horrible.

This book has everything I love in a story: slightly dangerous occupations (my writing regularly features EMS and military characters). War and chaos. A handsome, brooding male character. A love triangle ... and a happy ending (I'm a sucker for those). Evans did a masterful job of using traumatic events and showing how the characters develop because of (or in spite of) them. The 'voice' of each was authentic and even though there were four points of view (telling their stories) I didn't have any moments of confusion like I have in other books. The only weakness: the purpose of the moose-on-fire imagery was unclear to me, other than a vague notion of significance.

Started out really well, but then very quickly took a dip into the cliche and everything for some reason had to be over the top meaningful and emotional, in the worst way possible. The characters in this book makes choices that does not fit who they are, and as a reader they are hard to care for at all. The story goes crazy and unbelievable, and tries to justify things that are basically twisted and sick. Further down you can read just exactly why I think this, if you don't mind spoilers.

- Spoilers beyond this point -
Also that bullshit thing where Julia is dating Ed, then falls in love with Connor but decides to stay with Ed anyhow. Then there is a big fire where Ed gets blinded while doing his job and a young girl gets killed. Julia somehow manages to blame all of this on herself even though none of it was her doing and she therefore marries Ed out of guilt.
She builds an entire life and marriage around feeling guilty for loving her husbands best friend more than him. And then, sick and twisted as it is, when Ed turns out to be sterile, she has a baby with Connor, to even further her bond with him...
Oh and despite her already basically cheating on Ed with her every waking thought of Connor, we conveniently avoid any actual cheating because Ed dies at a super young age (And the cause of death does even get explained, he just dies, how convenient).
Then Julia, as the super great responsible mom she is, take her and Connors daughter with her to Afrika, straight into a war zone, just because Connor was there once, many years ago, just hoping he will return so she can finally get some man meat after years of stupidly avoiding her feelings. And when the war then moves right up to her front door, does she leave to protect her daughter? NO. Mother of the freaking year. No she leaves at the very last minute, in a very very dangerous situation that could have gotten them both killed.
Oh oh and get this, then Connor (Big hero he is) jumps out of a chopper straight into the war zone to save them, and he does and oh how amazing it is. Then with the daughters blessing the two "star crossed lovers" finally work out the years of sexual frustration and lust, whoopti freaking doo...

Sometimes when you pick up a book you have an idea of where the story is going. I at least had an idea of where this one was going, but had no idea the struggles that would occur in the story to get there, nor did I have the story completely resolved.

I was first introduced to Nicholas Evans in a book store on a summer vacation. We were in one of those books a million and the cover kept grabbing at me. Till at last I resolved myself to purchase The Horse Whisper. What an astounding book and author. I've read The Loop also. I purchased The Smoke Jumper ages ago and just never got around to reading it. I wasn't disappointed either.

This story of love and courage for all parties involved is very deep. Life is always a struggle and sometimes we learn right away life's experience and sometimes we have to keep making the same mistakes over and over (always in different forms) until we "get it". The journey for Julia, Ed, and Connor is a long one. Life lessons are many. The story has enough "reality" spin on it that you can't help thinking it could be true.

Nicholas Evans is a first rate story teller who has infused every element available to a writer into the Smoke Jumper and turned a mere spark of an idea into fireworks -- he has an uncanny ability to get inside the very essence of what makes his characters tick and fleshes each one into a real & alive being, real in one's own mind anyway. Combine that with epic proportions that leads the reader from one continent to another and back again, threading it with a cocktail of catch-22 circumstances which are cause for the reader to pause and contemplate impact, summoning uncomfortable questions about how they really feel regarding certain dicey situations, and leading you to wonder how in the hell he's going to tie all these long and winding roads together. Tie them he does and in expert style. The Smoke Jumper is, indeed, about bona fide Smoke Jumpers (of which I didn't even know existed) but it's also about troubled teens and the people who try to help them, music men chasing yet losing their big dreams, the destruction caused by perceived unrequited love and the shattering rain of war; in essence, The Smoke Jumper is about human existence and the relationship that human beings have with one another under a vast array of circumstances. The ability of Nicholas Evans to pull off such a complicated tale so well is uncanny. How he gets inside the head of so many varied personalities and interprets what appears to be very real and plausible outcomes of each interaction is remarkable. Is there a tad bit of fictional magic thrown into the mix? Sure. But afterall, isn't that the beauty and liberty of fiction and to be expected to some degree? Is there a little bit of mooshie romance added for good measure. Yep - a little, but it's not overbearing and the allure of the book's basic premise far overshadows the lovey dovey factor. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the Smoke Jumper. It was a great read by a wonderful & talented writer.

Het eerste en tweede deel zijn heerlijk om te lezen, maar het laatste deel is deels cliché en voorspelbaar. Jammer, maar alsnog een fijn boek om te lezen!

Oh en vergeet niet de belachelijk lange zinnen waarbij je de draad al halverwege kwijtraakt en waardoor je terug moet lezen en daarmee de vaart uit je boek haalt en zorgt voor dit soort narigheid. ;)

I LOVED this book! I would've given it 4.5 stars if possible, and didn't feel it deserved 5 stars, so I rounded down to 4. That being said...one of my favorites! I stayed up till early hours of the morning reading this book because I was so captured by everything about it. The lifestyle, the love, the tragedy, the suspense...EVERYTHING! I saw someone else who reviewed this book say that it made them want to visit Montana and I am going to second that! In fact, can I move to Montana instead of visit? Just the vision of men in cowboy hats, blue jeans, boots, and semi-dirty from a hard day's work out in the forest...so enticing! I was able to vision every scenes with such detail it was incredible! The poem Ed left for Julia made me ball like a little girl. Anyways, I was very sad when I finished this book at like 1:30am today. And I would love, love, love to see it made into a movie; however, I don't think that'll happen since it's been out for a while.

I read a lot of books and have a lot of favorites. When someone asks me "What's your favorite book?" It takes a while for me to think of one or I just say the one I recent read. But now after 19 years I have found my all time book! "The Smoke Jumper" is my true all time favorite book. It has an awesome intense, heartwarming storyline where you fall in love with the characters. I love books that has romance and this book has the heartwarming, tear jerking love story I have ever read.
Evans did an amazing job and I want to thank him for writing this book!
I <3 "Smoke Jumper"

Loved it. Great story, albeit a lot of sadness but couldn't put it down.