Rating: 
Summary: Refracting light across the weathered beach
Review: As many reviewers have noted, Sea Glass is a quiet and slow read, but that is the beauty of the novel. It creates a nostalgic feeling--I can almost see the expression on my grandmother's face when she remembered the Great Depression. Each character may or may not be developed enough for some readers, but they characters are there to support the main plot, much like the supporting actors in many movies or the marginal actors in films. Honora Beecher, a naive young woman, marries Sexton, a husband with less than adequate ethics and behaviors. Her struggle to find peace and joy within her home mirrors the struggles of the mill workers as they battle management in an attempt to garner higher wages and better working conditions. Honora wishes for the same things in her own life. This book signifies the struggle of the period and its individual characters, because despite the depression, people's lives were not entirely consumed by just the larger economic state of the country.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad
Review: Sea Glass is a story about love and struggle. A newly married couple starts a new life together, venturing the unknown in a new place at the brink of the depression era. Other characters come into the picture. The caring mother, the lonely mill worker, the rich lady, the suffering family.. Events are narrated from the different perspectives of these main characters, unfolding the story as life eventually brought them together. The promising beginning, the emotional neglect, the turn of event, the coincidences, the forbidden love, the strike, the sacrifices.. Things are sometimes described matter-of-factly, without playing with the emotions. Yet I was sorry for the unfortune, happy for the graces, and suprised by the ending.
Rating: 
Summary: First Read from this Author
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect after I read the back cover of this book but since it was a gift and I was ready to start my summer reading, I thought I would dig in. I knew if after the first 20 pages I wasn't crazy about it, I wouldn't go through with it.
I was pleasantly surprised once I began. I really enjoyed the variations of having each chapter being told through a different characters point of view, yet they weren't choppy and all intertwined to create one omnicient perspective. When I realized the time period the story was taking place in, I felt a little skeptical that I knew what was coming next. I was hoping it woulnd't be any Depression era story and my wish was granted. I felt the trials and tribulations that people had to endure from all walks of life was realistic, and tying in a few historical facts with beautifully written prose made this story a good summer read.
I never would have picked an Anita Shreve book myself but after this read I'm really looking forward to picking up another. I recommend this to people who enjoy Barbara Kingsolver's style and variation on character perspective, yet someone who is in the mood for something new, read this before the summer is over.
Rating:
Summary: ALMOST 4 stars....Pleasant read
Review: This was my first Anita Shreve novel. I was impressed with the imagery in this book. The characters came together very well. The story was good and had a surprise ending...not at all what was expected. The best way to describe it is "pleasant". Good story.
Rating:
Summary: excellent imagery
Review: I have read several Anita Shreve novels and have never been disappointed. Sea Glass has the ability to bring to life the smell of the sea and the brilliant colors of the glass. The kinetic imagery of the water and the wind is intense. I loved that! I think Shreve is so unique in the creation of her female characters. They are such strong women. I don't know if it is the stream of consciousness narration from Vivian and Honora that makes their emotions so clear to the reader or the everyday experiences that let the reader relate to them on a common plain. The scenes are so well-constructed that you can literally feel the tension in the characters. When Honora and Sexton are together the first time you can feel the anxiety in Honora and the urgency in Sexton. Later, in the house when they are printing the papers and everyone knows that something is going to happen with the strike, I found myself gripping the book so hard my hands hurt. There aren't many writers who have the talent to create such heavy characters and move them through heavy scenes without overwhelming the reader. And the great thing about Shreve is she is consistent. So far, every book I have read has been perfect. Note: This book is one of three that take place in the same house but different time periods. I am not sure in which order she wrote them but chronologically they are: Fortune's Rocks, Sea Glass, and The Pilot's Wife.
Rating:
Summary: Sea glass shatters
Review: Honora Beecher collects sea glass off the coast of New Hampshire. Fragments of clear, blue and green bottles -- boat trash, she thinks to herself -- find their way to the sandy beach where Honora is making a life with her new husband Sexton Beecher. It's the late 1920s, and they are buying into the American dream as deeply as they know how. He is a typewriter salesman. She works full-time to make their scruffy fixer-upper a home, while waiting, hopefully, to get pregnant. Anita Shreve's latest novel, Sea Glass, starts out in these idyllic terms. Loving husband, hard-working couple, a first home, a satisfying hobby. It's a world infused with gadgets from the past, like a copiograph machine, the precursor of the photocopier, and with the habits of the past -- like making all your own dresses. Sea Glass might, on the most superficial inspection, seem to be another one of those historical romances that view the past, especially the '20s and '50s, as the "wonder years," a safer and more innocent time than the one we live in now. But Shreve's novel steers well clear of that shoal. Instead, this intriguing novelist seems bent on showing us that the 1920s were just as scary and unpredictable as our own times. The headlines Honora reads every morning suggest a world just as close to spinning out of control as the one most readers are familiar with today. Dozens die over the Fourth of July weekend, many in fireworks accidents. Others drown or crash their cars. With no warning, a ship explodes in the harbor, killing half a town. Soon the fragile harmony of the Beechers' perfect lives, seemingly unflawed by the kind of moral turbulence we experience in the 21st century, is blown apart by the stock market crash and a subsequent union strike. The singular accomplishment of Shreve's book is that she is able to capture a time gone by in authentic and believable detail without making her characters cute, quaint or unrealistically virtuous -- the hubris of the average historical romance writer. In the world of Sea Glass, people live together without getting married, cheat on their employers and think about having extramarital affairs, just as characters in a contemporary novel would. Some readers may find the character of Sexton Beecher the most believable. Just as Shreve refuses to romanticize the past, she also refuses to put the 1920s American family man on a pedestal. Beecher is driven by a vast, unfocused hunger which, if viewed from the right angle, might appear to be the dark side of that American dream we talk so much about. Sexton is good with people, a look-you-straight-in-the-eye kind of guy, and he has no problem doling out the little lies that make up business relationships. He longs for his own home, and he'll do some creative financing to get it. He loves his wife, but when they're apart and he's lonely, he's not opposed to a little recreation with another woman. And yet, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that many readers will not despise Sexton; they will understand his hunger. Like that other famous traveling salesman, Willie Loman, Sexton makes the reader ache for his failure at the same time that he (the reader) clearly perceives the character's many errors of judgment. Just as sea glass offers hints of a lost era, so Shreve's new novel is a perfect fragment of our past -- a fictional story, but one so true to human psychology and the mores of the times, the reader may feel it contains more truth than a diary or a newspaper archive.
Rating: 
Summary: Very difficult read...
Review: Focuses more on the mill strikes than the central characters... had a tough time getting through it! Definitely not one of Anita's best!
Rating:
Summary: One of the ones to remember
Review: The book is extraordinary, a beautifully written story. I could not wait to finish it and at the same time I was sad it would.
Rating:
Summary: Easy, pleasant, light reading
Review: You could finish this book in a few days if on vacation. It is an enjoyable, cream puff of a book - easy to read and understand. Not a lot in it challenges in any way. I found the end to be very disappointing, though it doesn't ruin the enjoyability of the book and only really occupies a few short chapters. I thought I discerned a few things that were out of time. Such as a reference to the Wizard of Oz in the year 1929. Nonetheless - good, fluffy beach reading for summertime.
Rating:
Summary: Good reading
Review: I previously read The Pilot's Wife, so I thought I would try this book. I was pleasantly surprised. I am not sure I like the format of writing each chapter in the perspective of a different person--in the beginning it is a bit hard to follow. The book reads well, once you get the characters. The end of the book makes for a nice reading straight thru as it it moves quickly and with some intensity. I would like to see a follow up to this book as the end is not really an end but more of a beginning.
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