Rating: 
Summary: Confused
Review: I must be dense, because I didn't understand the ending of this book. I have read almost all of Anita Shreve's novels and this one left me puzzled. Guess I have to re-read it. Was Linda all a figment of Thomas' imagination through the years? That's all I can figure, since she dies at the "end of the book". Would appreciate someone explaining this one.
Rating: 
Summary: PageTurner/Tear Jerker!
Review: What a book! It was fabulous, Anita Shreve's best work. The whole story just caught me up, and the ending was so sad, I really did cry, hard! I was reading it on the bus and I had to go back to the ending to reread, and then cry some more. My friend started reading it a few days later, and when she got to the end, I could share with her what she thought too, but she didn't understand the (surprise) ending, so I explained it to her, and she liked it better that way. What a great book!
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable
Review: This is the first Shreve book I've read and I'm an instant fan! Now it's a matter of reading the rest of her books. The Last Time They Met is so beautifully written and so well structured. Then, of course, the story line is so captivating. Shreve is a master at telling a story from the point of view of more than one character without losing touch with the plot. And, yes, we all have our opinions about the ending, but that's the magic of it. Shreve is clever; she leaves you pondering her characters and their stories long after you've read the novel. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Shreve does not disappoint....
Review: The Last Time They Met is a beautiful thriller of a book, one which teases, confounds, makes you think, and tugs at your heartstrings. One you can't put down .. it will make you look up, blinking, like an animal emerging from a cave at mid-day, in your dim room, and make you think someone **Must** have set your bed-side clock at Least two hours forward! It's That good!! Shreve has a wonderful knack for detail and description and character. Thomas and Linda become so real to you, you swear they must exist, somewhere, on this Earth. Or that they should have. You will be enticed, seduced, left breathless, and you will be left with tears in your eyes. Whatever you do, Don't skip ahead! The suspense is so measured, so finely tuned, it would ruin the book to guess too much. The ending leaves you to think, and ponder, and meditate on how fiction can bring 'people' ("characters") and a world to life so Well, it is almost heartbreaking. Shreve is in my top ten favorite writers these days, and it's mainly due to this book. A plus too for Shreve's fantastic depictions of Age, (Youth, Mid-20's, Middle Age were all depicted so realistically, you would swear her memory as a writer/person living those moments was Photographic)... and Place.. Thomas and Linda's times together in New England, Africa, and the nameless grey Northern city of the writer's conference are all so vivid, you swear you can feel the rain fall on your head, the feel of dust and hunger under the African sun, the smell of new vinyl and sweat in a young boy's car... it's all so Real... Shreve's gift of weaving deep truths about us all into her stories is nothing short of remarkable... she creates in these characters a Love so true, so complete, that nothing can stand in its way... it will continue on, on its own momentum, forever...
Rating:
Summary: Great book!!
Review: Wow, there are some harsh reviews in here... I found this book to be well-written and enrapturing - one of the few novels of this time that actually held my attention. I read it in a few days and promptly recommended it to a friend.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book in 4 days
Review: Don't you just love those books you can't put down? I'm so glad I found another one...
Really good read about a lifelong love. Some of the individual lines just made my spine shiver - so close to human truths.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your time and money!
Review: This is the last novel by Anita Shreve that I will ever read. It was slow at the start, and by the time I got to the end, I was curious to see how the story would come together. I was unbelievably disappointed by the ending -- so much that I walked off a plane and promptly threw this book into the first garbage can I saw. I wish I could have the hours I spent reading this novel back to do something more worthwhile with! Don't waste your time or money on this one! If I could have awarded this book no stars, I would have!
Rating:
Summary: Incredible!
Review: This is an incredible book! Of all of Shreve's books, this is one of the best. (Along with Fortune's Rocks and The Weight of Water). The ending left me shattered!
Rating:
Summary: Isn't it great the power Shreve has through her characters??
Review: A friend asked me to read the book and explain it to her. I read without asking what confused her, and got caught up in the characters' lives. Although there are A LOT of hints-- use of italics rather than quotation marks, etc.--the surprise at the end knocked the wind out of me! I was disappointed, mostly because it seemed a little too clever and perhaps trite to end both Linda and Thomas' lives in such an abrupt manner. I guess it seemed a little manipulative too, although a great way to illustrate the tragedy of Linda's life cut short and Thomas'life without his one love. Maybe Shreve is reminding us that these aren't people, just characters; they exist only on the pages she has given us, the same way Linda continued to exist for Thomas after her untimely death. The Last Time They Met is as Shreve herself put it, "the enduring struggle to capture in words the infinite possibilities of a life not lived."
Rating:
Summary: What about the ending?
Review: For the most part, I enjoyed this book. This writer has an incredibly strong sense of place - the descriptions of the different settings make you feel as if you're there with the characters. I must say that I was disappointed in the ending of the novel. I felt cheated, as though I had read the entire book only to be let down at the end. However, if you love surprising endings with twists, this one will definitely get you!
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