Rating: 
Summary: Good, Not Her Best
Review: Anita Shreve's latest book, "Sea Glass," is a quiet novel that deals with the universal themes of life, love, loss, hope, beauty, tragedy and death."Sea Glass" begins in 1929, when Sexton Beecher, a typewriter salesman, marries bank clerk, Honora. They decide to make their home in a rather dalipidated, but still romantic, New England beach house. Honora is a fulltime wife and homemaker and besides the usual things all wives and homemakers do, Honora loves to take long walks on the beach and collect bits of colored glass, worn smooth as silk by the waves of the sea. Eventually, Honora meets and becomes friends with, Vivian, a wealthy woman who happens to live nearby. The world seems, at least to Honora, to be an almost perfect place. When things are too good, they usually don't last and Honora learns this lesson the hard way. When the Depression causes Sexton to lose his job, his car and even jeopardizes the house, Honora is, of course, frightened. Sexton does find work at the local textile mill, but the job isn't a good one and a strike soon jeopardizes that as well. Sexton and Honora's home become the center for the strike organizers and this event will, eventually, turn Honora's world upside down. When she begins to cook meals for everyone who meets at the house she meets handsome, Quillen McDermott and his twelve year old friend, Francis. Although times are very difficult, Honora suddenly finds that she is enjoying herself. Both the constant company and the presence of Francis, to whom she becomes a surrogate mother, are comforting. But, where McDermott is concerned, Honora may just be finding things a little too comforting and complications arise. These complications and how they are solved make up the bulk of the book. This is a book that is told from the point of view of many of the characters involved. In almost every case this works, and it works well. The exceptions are Vivian and Francis. In the early sections of the book, Vivian played such a prominent part that we come to believe she will be an integral part of the coming storyline as well. Instead, she seems to fade a little more with each passing scene. Francis is also problematic. His chapters are written in long sentences that let us know he is smart, but lacks the education he should have at his age. This wouldn't be bad in and of itself. The problem arises because the rest of the novel is so quiet and so poetic; Francis' chapters seem a little abrupt, as if they're jarring us out of a lovely reverie that we just don't want to leave. Shreve is good, at least in this book, at creating convincing, believable characters and then making them come to life. The tension and excitement that exists between Honora and McDermott is especially memorable. Although the description is good, the symbolism of the sea glass, however, is a bit heavy-handed, especially near the end. This is a quiet book, with no great surprises and no great suspense. It doesn't delve too deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters involved, but then, we don't always want something that's earthshaking. I think most women will find more than enough to relate to in this book and Anita Shreve fans will probably love it.
Rating: 
Summary: It Didn't Shine for Me
Review: I've read all of Anita Shreve's books. This one wasn't as good as A Pilot's Wife or The Weight of Water. Her latest book tells the story of the stock market crash in 1929. We see the struggle of the mill workers and the impact of such a horrendous economic blow to all of the various social classes. Honora Beecher is at the centre of the story though the novel is told from 5 different perspectives. Shreve is an outstanding writer in that she uses wonderful, descriptive language and she can explore the human condition and the range of emotions like few other authors. I enjoyed this part of the book, but the story was a little too slow. I felt that some of the characters just didn't come to life like they could have...Vivian, the jaded socialite especially. Overall, this was a good book, just not her best.
Rating: 
Summary: If You Liked Fortune's Rocks You'll Like Sea Glass
Review: If you read and liked Fortune's Rocks, also by Anita Shreve, Sea Glass is a must read. It was hard to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous
Review: I couldn't put this book down. I loved the characters,
the time period and the setting. I felt like I was at the
ocean with them. MY FAVORITE BOOK OF THE YEAR
Rating: 
Summary: Deadly Dull
Review: Save yourself the money and a huge waste of time - this book was one of the most intensely dull I have ever read. The hopping back and forth between characters was tedious and the characters themselves poorly defined. Shreve eventually decides to try to tie them all together and winds up creating a ridiculous farce of an ending. The whole "sea glass" schmaltz was a cheap and nauseating way of trying to create some kind of romance in this disjointed and, may I say again, BORING novel.
Rating:
Summary: IT WAS OK
Review: i think that anita shreve books are just ok. i mean they could be better. i mean she just doesn't live an exciting life and she just makes it up. i mean you can tell that her life is not that exciting. where my life thing actually happen. maybe i should write a book. anyways. it is kind of boring like all her other books i read. this one book fortunes rocks that book was not good at all. it sucked and i didn't even read the first four chapters.
Rating: 
Summary: disapointing
Review: The book started out interesting and about half way through became almost science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Names, Colors and Chaos
Review: This is a page turner which combines historical details and engaging characters with widely different backgrounds and motivations into a cohesive and shocking tale that reverberates with good intentions. Set in New England during the Depression, a young salesman, Sexton Beecher marries a bank clerk, Honora. The names are important: they echo time, heritage and personality and thereby keep this story on track. She is everything her name implies, that is, honorable, lovely, intelligent, curious, and clever. She begins a collections of colorful glass that has been washed up on the beach. The salesman, a rogue, is attractive and persuasive but flawed by self delusion. Living in a beach house outside a mill town, they are beset with financial and emotional problems. Anita Shreve creates an exciting dramatic situation by uniting their upper-class neighbor, a communist trade union organizer and two mill workers, a twelve year old boy and a thoughtful, kind man with the Beechers. Their common goal is to help others cope with intense poverty, and a mill workers strike. The efforts of the strikers is rewarded by violence and death. It is a very attractive story, rich in detail and held together most deeply by the character of Honora and the colors of her sea glass, beautiful things which endure the chaos of the time.
Rating:
Summary: the sad demise of anita shreve's talent
Review: Anita Shreve used to be a respectable writer. Now she's a talentless hack. This book sucks. It makes annoying references to Fortune's Rocks (her second worst book- the novel that marked the beginning of the end for Anita). Her books are too similar, Anita is a one trick pony. If you want to read it, at least just borrow it from the library, don't waste money buying it off Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: A book of social history.
Review: This is a depression era story, written with a deliberately unsophisticated tone, suggestive of the "common people". It is an interesting novel of social history, with one character who is well developed. Fortunately, she is the most important character, a solidly grounded woman of the middle class who marries a shallow salesman. Her experiences as a newly wed, and her enjoyment of the beauties of living by the ocean transcend the times. The social history focuses on a New England mill, and a terrible strike which occurs there, but a broader picture is painted, including the very rich. Warnings: it is not like the other Shreve books I have read in style; the book may induce you to sell all your stocks.
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