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Here are some customer reviews of Serpent in Paradise : What a tremendous tragedy that such a wonderful opportunity was wasted on a selfish, back-stabbing, childish writer. I was really looking forward to reading this book. In fact, after reading the first chapter, which is essentially a synopsis of the history of the Mutiny on the Bounty, I thought it was shaping up to be one of the finer books of the year. Unfortunately, after finishing it, I was absolutely disgusted with the author's self indulgence and lack of insight. Particularly appalling was her "surprise" that others on the island of 38 knew about her affair with one of the island's married men - this is after she had observed several times that there were no secrets on the tiny island. I hate to think how the Pitcairners feel about this book. They warmly welcomed Dea into their homes, not knowing that she has lied about the reasons for her visit. She moans that they gossip about her behind her back but she then writes a nasty, backstabbing book about them. Who is a vindictive gossip? Dea is! The book is full of contradictions. She claims that she had read all about Pitcairn before she set out for the island and yet she didn't know that the Browns weren't descendants of mutineer William Brown. Anyone who is interested in the Bounty should know that the mutineers that left descendants were Fletcher Christian, Ned Young, McCoy, Quintal, John Adams and Mills. And she states that she is not sure who is buried in John Adams's grave!! I'm sure the Pitcairners know and Dea is just trying to make a mystery where they isn't one. Just like she made up her fear of the Pitcairners (or else she is absolutely paranoid.) When I bought this book I was really looking forward to reading about modern-day Pitcairners but by the end of the book I felt guilty about prying into their lives. Great fun and filled with fascinating insights. Ms. Birkett walked the walk on Pitcairn and emerged with her notebooks intact. If you enjoy high adventure AND have a sense of humor, you will treasure this book. This book is worth reading, not so much for a view of life on Pictcairn Island or for a history of The Bounty, but rather because of the fascinating and powerfully disturbing portrait of a completely self absorbed author. She lacks the most basic respect for the subject she rights about. The gall of this woman. She lies about he reason for visiting the island and is welcomed as a guest into these peoples homes and community, and then had the nerve to criticize the intimate details of their lives. At the same time she behaves like a spoiled adolescent who expects to be universally accepted and the center of attention. It's no wonder they didn't like her. It was fascinating to read about a place I shall never visit, and people who have developed a way of living and coping with each other on lines paralell but dissimilar to our own. In some ways, this society could almost - but not quite - be compared to a monastic environment in that they are both enclosed and because those understand what is expected of them and behave in a way which respects the boundaries of others. Ms Birkett inveigls her way into this society by deceit, poses as a researcher when she is in fact using this opportunity to record impressions so denigrating that they border on the obcene. Her ill-judged affair with a local married man is (predictably) quickly known by the other islanders (how likely is it that such an affair could be kept secret in a community of 37 people?) and in doing so causes irreparable hurt to the nicest character in the book, a local who tried to court her. My overriding impression was that the author was deeply rooted in the travel writing of the British colonial era - and the assumptions that colonised people are primitive, and their lives to be used - in this case, processed into a book. Writing a book which alleges that the islanders might be trying to murder her is as poisonous, it its way, as plundering natural resources or polluting the land. I hope that the islanders will forget this. My heart goes out to them. Although the author can write and has some occasional flashes of inslight, she is a person with whom I would like to be stranded...

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