Rating: 
Summary: Where or When Will This Awful Novel End?
Review: Charles and Sian met at a Catholic summer camp when they were teens and lost touch soon after (it wasn't explained why exactly). Years later they are middle aged and married with children: Charles has money problems and Sian husband's onion farm (you read correctly--onion farm)is not doing so hot either. Charles contacts Sian via letter and they strike up an affair (the place for these rendevouz is the old Catholic summer camp grounds that is now a bed and breakfast). Predictably the time comes to decide whether to leave their families to be together or part ways. During this whole charade, which I honestly tried to like, the plot is so thin and the characters fail to earn any empathy for their weekly love fests. The affair is never really justified. The characters seem so shallow and dispicable because they are ruining so many lives and their own relationship lacks chemistry. Sian seems way too intellectual to ever give Charles a second thought (she is a poet and he is an insurance salesman). I loved Anita Shreve's other novels but this novel is page after page of unearned sentimentality. Try reading her novel Sea Glass, it is much better.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely not her best . . .
Review: First off, let me say that I am a hug fan of Anita Shreve, of tales of long-lost loves, and of tragic endings. So this book should have been made for me, right? Sadly, no. I was very disappointed in this novel. Not for one moment did I care about the main characters; there was nothing in the novel to make me feel any sympathy or understanding for them. I also found some parts of the novel somewhat trite and cliched, especially the parts revolving around the music tape. Still, the writing was very good, and there were some moments of clarity and suspense. There are other Shreve novels that are much more worthwhile.
Rating: 
Summary: It's More Realistic Than You Think
Review: I liked this book, and I found it to be exactly right for rekindled romances. And I should know: I have done research on such couples, more than 2000, for 11 years. Real lost lovers DO instantly reunite without regard to consequences. And it doesn't matter what they have accomplished later in life, whether they would ever have fallen in love if they were just meeting that person for the first time. First love is very powerful, actually physically imprinted in the emotional part of the brain. While we on the outside can question the morality of lost lovers who destroy their families, I can tell you that it's realistic nonetheless. I strongly suspect that this book is autobiographical.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh! A resounding disappointment
Review: I read this book quickly, so possibly I missed some of the logic that would lead two married 46 year olds to abandon evryone significant in their lives to be together. Their relationship didn't make sense to me - surely we all have a special girl- or boyfriend from our teen years. I simply cannot see myself overcome with lust in a public place upon first sighting of someone I thought I loved 31 years ago. I'd like to think we both required a longer period of reconnection. Also, how did both parties have so much unfettered time? Did Charles' financial worries disappear when he bought champagne, gifts, meals and a hotel room for them? Didn't his wife's reaction seem a bit odd? Mmmm. I think I am a consummate romantic, but I just can't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: What Price to Pay
Review: It has been said that middle age brings turmoil and discontent with love. However, at what price is one, far into their 40's or 50's willing to pay for a chance at finding the flickering possiblility of a younger (teenage) love of long ago?For most responsible persons, the price is far too high. In this novel, the price is not. Charles Calahan recognizes the picture of a girl he met at camp, and that is all it takes for him to toss aside wife, family with small children, home, business and township respect. Intrigued by the recollection, he begins to write the woman named Sian Richards, successfully seducing her into meeting him at a romantic hotel. The initial correspondences are met with trepidation, but between the two of them a line is crossed and they decide to meet, they flaunt, they flirt, they .... A psychological peek at middle-aged angst, the novel scratches irritantly for those who play by the rules, those never willing to risk losing the people they love most. For Charles and Sian, the price is high. What they do not know is just how high it is going to get.
Rating:
Summary: What Price to Pay
Review: It has been said that middle age brings turmoil and discontent with love. However, at what price is one, far into their 40's or 50's willing to pay for a chance at finding the flickering possiblility of a younger (teenage) love of long ago? For most responsible persons, the price is far too high. In this novel, the price is not. Charles Calahan recognizes the picture of a girl he met at camp, and that is all it takes for him to toss aside wife, family with small children, home, business and township respect. Intrigued by the recollection, he begins to write the woman named Sian Richards, successfully seducing her into meeting him at a romantic hotel. The initial correspondences are met with trepidation, but between the two of them a line is crossed and they decide to meet, they flaunt, they flirt, they .... A psychological peek at middle-aged angst, the novel scratches irritantly for those who play by the rules, those never willing to risk losing the people they love most. For Charles and Sian, the price is high. What they do not know is just how high it is going to get.
Rating: 
Summary: Early Look At Things to Come
Review: Published in 1993, "Where or When" seems almost a rough draft for the later books "The Weight of Water" and "The Last Time They Met," but without the depth. As in her later books, Shreve explores the rather desperate idea that love only comes once, and that the first time it hits, at no matter what age, is the last time. All that comes afterwards is merely living...not life. Thus, when a married insurance broker, Charles, comes across a newspaper photo of his first love, Sian, his already tense life falls apart. Facing the loss of his business and his home because of the recession in his seaside Rhode Island town, Charles becomes obsessed with reconnecting with his lost love--whom he knew for one week only at a summer camp when he and she were 14 years old. Sian, a poet, is also married with one child--but their connection is so strong that it overwhelms all other reality until it causes ripples that destroy them both. Could this have been avoided? Shreve seems to think not--and the reader is left wondering what possible connection a relationship forged at 14 years old could have on two seemingly intelligent and connected adults. A strange, disturbing story, one that hints at Shreve's later brilliance, but certainly does not contain it.
Rating:
Summary: Plagued by underdevelopment
Review: Sian Richards has just published her third book of poetry, an ad for which appears in the newspaper. When Charles Callahan happens upon the ad, and sees Sian's picture, he realizes that she is the girl he fell in love with at summer camp, when they were both 14, some 30-odd years ago. Overwhelmed with memory and emotion, he decides to write her a letter and thus begins a correspondence which leads the two of them, very quickly, into each other's arms. Trapped in unhappy marriages, together they find release from their individual realities and obsessively romanticize their relationship. Of course, guilt and complications ensue. And then, abruptly, the novel ends. There is now no reason for any of you to read this book. The extent of its depth is encapsulated above. In fairness, it is a moving, quiet novel, at times both sad and beautiful in its language and emotion, but ultimately one which leaves you unsatisfied; it is so lean, both in length and development, that the reader is never afforded the opportunity to fully involve himself in its world. Everything about the story and its characters sits on the surface of the page, as if the writer is keenly afraid of exploring the deeper issues at hand. With "Weight of Water" a few years later, Shreve proved that she is a very capable talent who can write above the sort of superficial emotion she concerns herself with here. Skip "Where or When," but don't skip Shreve altogether.
Rating:
Summary: Not a love story
Review: The review from The Washington Post says, "...A heart-wrenching, suspenseful story with an unforgettable conclusion, Where or When is also a thoughtful contemporary romance."
I liked the writing, but hated the story, and most of all hated the main character, Charles. Charles is married, with 3 wonderful children whom he adores, and who adore him. Charles is on the brink of financial ruin, and unhappy with life, thus unhappy with his marriage, although the book never really explores the why's of the failing marriage.
Charles is reading the literary reviews one day, and happens upon the picture of a childhood girlfriend. He feels compeled to write to her, knowing he still has strong feelings for her. This is where I started to hate Charles. He knowingly sets out to find this woman with whom he shared his first feelings of love. He hid the picture from his wife, which to me means he knows he's doing something he shouldn't.
While corresponding with Sian, it seems more to me like Charles is stalking her, rather than writing her romantic letters. I can't believe that any woman, after so many years, would deliberately go along with this, esp. after she's told him she didn't want to meet with him. He ignores her, and continues to write to her, at one point driving 3 hours just to see where she lives. Seems a little desparate to me.
What bothered me most was that Charles was on the brink of financial ruin, but was buying Sian gifts, traveling for hours to meet with her, and staying at the inn with her. Who needs a man like that, what could possibly be attractive about a man who's broke, has 3 wonderful children, and a wife? Then, to top it off Charles not only tells his wife of the affair, and that he's leaving her, he also tells her their house is going into foreclosure....all on Christmas eve.
One other reviewer said that there was a note written in crayon by the 12 year old child. Well, first of all, the older child was a girl, and 2nd of all the note written in crayon, which was a heartbreaker for me, WAS written by the 5 year old son, not the 12 year old.
The end isn't heart-wrenching at all, I'm glad it happens that way, except for Sian's last minute of insanity. With a 3 year old daughter of her own, she has real world responsibilites, so get over it!
I did like this book, the way Anita Shreve writes is very compelling. I didn't like the subject matter or the main character, Charles.
Rating:
Summary: Liked the book, hated the man, hated the ending
Review: Well written, in typical Anita Shreve style, it was an excellent portrayal of the unravelling of a marriage. It didn't matter what the main character's spouse's were like, they were beside the point. The main characters are 2 lonely people who may have left their marriages at some other point anyway. I resented, however, as another reviewer, the male for attending to his affair, instead of his financial problems, not only betraying his wife but also betraying the children and their future. Also, how dare he tell this all to her on Christmas eve? Couldn't he have put aside his own needs for 1 more night? And the ending, it was a cop-out. Shame on Shreve for taking this way out.
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