Rating: 
Summary: Unforgettable!!
Review: This is the first book of Anita Shreve's that I read. I have never forgotten the story and images. Like others have mentioned the first section is brutal. But please, please give it a chance because once you get to the second section it is awesome. Unique and wonderful. But bear in mind that Anita Shreve is not for everyone. She has a unique way with language and some people just cannot get into it. I'm a big fan though.
Rating: 
Summary: I can't bring myself to keep reading
Review: A number of the reviews mention the "slow" beginning. Slow! Slow?! Slow hardly describes it. Torture would be a better description. Horrid torture actually. I can tolerate a slow beginning, but this is beyond slow. It's just too bad to keep reading. Save your time, save your money and find something you actually enjoy reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Seen it before...
Review: *****SPOILERS******I'm surprised that nobody's compared this one to "Atonement." Maybe it's only because I read this one a mere month after I finished "Atonement," but boy talk about deja vu. I even checked to see the copyright years on both books - 2001. I thought the story moved very slowly, and I too, as mentioned in other reviews, had little sympathy for Thomas. I didn't like his character very much at all. The teenage romance hardly seemed as deep and long-lasting as the beginning of the book described. And I saw the "uncle" story coming a mile away. Of course, I didn't predict the ending, but then I just read nearly the exact same ending in "Atonement" so I was hardly astonished.
Rating:
Summary: I am so confused!!
Review: I greatly enjoyed reading The Pilot's Wife, Sea Glass, Where or When, Eden Close, and the Weight of Water. How was I to know that Shreve could put out such a confusing, impossible and unrealistic novel? I've reread the end several times and am trying to put a timeline together of what I've just read and it's not possible. If you're good at figuring out a Rubik's Cube, this is a novel for you. Otherwise, stick with the others I mentioned before!
Rating:
Summary: Good start but weakens at the end
Review: While this book kept my attention and seemed believable in the
beginning, it lost it by the end. As older characters, Linda and Thomas are real. Yet as teenagers, who's love lasts a life time, its pretty far fetched. As teenagers, the characteres seem good friends, but there's no evidence of strong feelings. Yet, these two people become obessed with each other later in life. I found it disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious drivel
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book after hearing so many positive things. I'd never read Shreve before...and I never will again. Her style is stiff, pretentious, & unnatural. Especially in her descriptives (overwhelming use of superfluous adverbs) and dialogue. I challenge any reader to think of a person they know who actually speaks like these characters. The ending in particular was silly. That last paragraph - unnecessarily tragic. Like a typical Hollywood tear-fest. Sad for the sake of being sad. Silliness.
Rating: 
Summary: LAST PARAGRAPH RUINED BOOK!
Review: I really enjoyed this book until the last paragraph. Sure, it's not great literature, but I still had a few hours invested in the damn book. I want those hours back.
Rating:
Summary: It Only Works in a Comedy
Review: Spoiler Ahead. Please don't read further if you plan to read the book. Unless you decide not to bother. There is something peculiar about Shreve's word choices -- contrived, self-conscious, and downright odd in places -- she does things like describing blue eyes as "navy." Navy eyes? She also talks about a "navy sky." Other awkward phrases, or pretentious descriptions actually stopped me in my tracks, with the writer seeming to intrude in her story to call attention to her "original" writing style. Possibly her off-center wording wouldn't have been distracting if the characters had been compelling. I read "The Weight of Water" after seeing the movie, and it might have been Penn's strength and integrity that made Thomas-as-written in "Last Time.." seem, by contrast, to be quiveringly emotional, and down-right tedious. No better was the depressed and depressing Linda, a character flat and unengaging, except all too briefly, in parts of the chapters set in Africa. Nor was there any help from the building of the plot, which I found oonfusing and contrived, erratic, sloppy and annoying. But all this pales in comparison to the ending. I had a sense that Shreve came up with this ending one day, thought it would be a good trick, and wrote the rest of the novel so she could use it. Remember "Dallas" where the writers had to figure out how to justify bringing a leading actor back in the story after he had died, and the series had gone on for at least a full season? One morning his wife, who had gone through immense and complex sturm und drang for a very long time after her husband died, woke up and found him taking a shower in their bathroom. "Good morning, honey!' Huh? Oh, right, the whole last season was just her dream. Um, okay. Shreve's ending also brings to mind a movie called "Soapdish" where Whoopie Goldberg, a soap opera head-writer, faces down her boss as he insists she find a way to bring another returning actor back in the story. "Just do it" he says. "What do you mean just do it," Whoopie tells him, " are you crazy, I can't just do it, he was beheaded!" The only time this trick worked, in my opinion, was when Bob Newhart used it with great wit, as a way to close his second series. He turned over in bed to find Susan Pleshette, his wife from his first series, asleep beside him. That time it was brilliant, satisfying, and very funny. With Newhart, no one felt cheated. With "Last Time.." I think it likely that, underneath any admiration for the sleight of hand, somewhere inside, the reader may find he/she felt not only cheated, but manipulated. And the reader would be right. Shreve's ending messes with our minds about the Real and the Unreal, and she just doesn't have the weight to pull it off. In her hands it is a cheap trick, and if she turns out to have watched network television, not so very original afterall.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: I found this book to be absolutely horrible. I enjoyed Sea Glass and the Pilot's Wife and cannot believe that the same author wrote this garbage. I recommend saving your money by not buying this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it with no preconceived expectations
Review: This was the very first Anita Shreve book I ever read, so I was fortunate enough to hold no expectations about her writing style, etc. I absolutely loved "The Last Time They Met" and have read many of Shreve's books since. I think Shreve was brilliant with this story; I was so surprised when I got to the end! I have reread the book countless times, and still cry at the end.
Though I can see how fans of past books were disappointed or confused by this one (and would urge them to give it another read) because the style is very different then most of Shreve's other books. However, I do believe that if you begin this book with an open mind, with no preconceived expectations (and work through the writing style within the first portion of the book) you will not be let down. "The Last Time They Met" is a beautiful story that I would (and have) recommend to any book lover.
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