Customer Reviews
a new fan - By: J. Munro, 28 Oct 2008 
i was given this book to read by a colleague & was slightly intimidated by the 900 odd pages by an author i hadnt read before, however i have to say that Until i Find You was one of the most moving, gripping novels i have read. At the end of the book i was so sorry it had ended & Jack Burns has left an indelible impession upon me as well as turning me into a John Irving fan.
A Good Read - By: thelardyman, 17 Sep 2008 A very good book indeed which I enjoyed. I say that as a person who views wrestling, tatooing & the early sexualisation of children with a lot of distaste.
There is a reason for the excessive detail in tbe first 150 pages & once you get into the rhythm & past it, things are fine.It's a good sign to me if one is able to love, hate, like or dislike characters. It means they are well drawn.
Of course one could have constructed a much shorter book with the same plot outline. For those in a hurry I am sure the Guardian had a 200 word & a 50 word synopsis.
Familiar territory, great charaters but a disappointing ending - By: ADM, 25 Aug 2008 
I'll not summarise the story, see other reviews for this. If you've read JI before then you know what to expect. This is one of his best but I don't think it is quite up there with his very best - nevertheless I found this unputdownable & loved every page of it.
As usual a huge array of somewhat unusual charaters have been created - these are not everyday folk & some of the things they do are way off the credibility scale. The book takes a real twist about two thirds of thw way through which makes the reader doubt much of what has been read before (just as the main character doubts his own memories) & I think this is the most effective & impressive element of the story.
For me the Hollywood/fame section of the story is the least interesting & I thought that the author may of been thinking about the film version of the book at this point.
My only other difficuly with the book was its ending, not so much in the plot ending which was OK but in some of the retrospective story that is given at this point which I just found silly (e.g the pictires on the walll). The ending seemed to be rushed which seems incredible in a book of 900+ pages.
Despite this though I would recommend this book, but not ahead of the Owen Meany, Garp, Cider House & Hotel New Hampshire.
Maybe not your cup of tea, but still a great book. - By: J. L. Thackrey, 12 Jan 2008 
Covering much ground, there were sections of the book I "learned" to quickly skim through...detailed descriptions of tattoos, descriptions of old Euro-church architecture, etc. Some may love these elaborations; it didn't mean much to me. Irving certainly seemed to enjoy telling us about them. But there was a point to it, I understand-- it was a part of these characters lives.
Without a doubt the book as a whole was intruiging. The story is rich with emotion & love & pain & injustice & struggle & loss & success. Just like life. And throughout every phase of Jack's life, as strange as it was at times, I reallly wanted everything to work out for him.
Back to Form for Irving - By: Mrs. K. A. Wheatley, 24 Oct 2007 I loved this book. Irving's output is prolific & sporadicallly brilliant. I felt that he had lost his lustre of late, but I reallly rate this book with his finest work: Owen Meany, Garp & Hotel New Hampshire. It is classic Irving, tragic boy, haunted by his past & his complex love/hate relationship with his mother. The action follows Alice the mother & her quest to locate the boy's father via the tattoo parlours of the world. It's quirky, irreverent, dark & very, very sad, but with that wonderful humane touch that saves his stories from being too terrible to bear. Thankfully there is little wrestling here, Irving's obsession with which spoils many of his other works for me.
