Title: Bel Canto

Author: Ann Patchett

Publisher: HarperCollins 2001

Genre: Literature

Pages: 318

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 21st Century Women; Rory Gilmore; Mount TBR; Women Authors

Opera and terrorism make strange bedfellows, yet in this novel they complement each other nicely. At a birthday party for Japanese industrialist Mr. Hosokawa somewhere in South America, famous American soprano Roxanne Coss is just finishing her recital in the Vice President's home when armed terrorists appear, intending to take the President hostage. However, he is not there, so instead they hold the international businesspeople and diplomats at the party, releasing all the women except Roxanne. Captors and their prisoners settle into a strange domesticity, with the opera diva captivating them all as she does her daily practicing. Soon romantic liaisons develop with the hopeless intensity found in many opera plots. Patchett (The Patron Saint of Liars) balances terrorism, love, and music nicely here.

This has been on my TBR list for ages. We chose it for our book club selection for July and I was very excited to read the novel finally. However, I ended up being not very impressed with the novel. It's not to say that it's bad. I imagine that many peiple love this volume. I just didn't. I never felt connected to any of the characters and became very detached about everything. People rave about Patchett's writing, but I didn't find anything special about it. It's a well written novel, but just not anything that really struck me as great.