Rating: 
Summary: Not Bad, but Painful
Review: This book was pretty well written...it kind of dragged in a few places, but overall the book gets the points across. Being in a similar situation myself, I can say that from experience that it does get across the pain of being in love with someone while everyone you know shuns you for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Dazzling Romance!
Review: Much of Shreve's writing is fast-paced and your eye seems glued from one line to the next as Shreve has a way of writing that foretells certain disatrous events which are soon to come. In other words, Shreve has a way of descriptively writing while at the same time letting the reader know that inherent in the description is a warning. Actually, it seems like every paragraph Shreve writes signals impending doom, which just glues your eye to the next paragraph/page with a sense of urgency, sort of like a careening locomotive plunging down a steep hill headed for a crash. And yet, it's the way Shreve puts words together which is so spectacular. Also recommended: The Lovely Bones by Sebold, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating: 
Summary: A BOOKSHELF KEEPER
Review: One of Anita Shreve's best, though I wish the book had ended a bit sooner. The difficult subject of underage passion with an older, married man is treated with delicacy and beauty. This novel was hard to put down. I'd also recommend "A Pilot's Wife" by the same author. -- Sophie Simonet, ACT OF LOVE, a romantic suspense novel (Fictionwise)
Rating: 
Summary: FORTUNE'S ROCKS: A Novel
Review: This was such a bad book. I really enjoyed "A Pilots Wife", but this book was an uncomfortable subject matter that has been so over done. There was not one character in this book that I liked or felt an sympathy for. This was an easy read for the beach but very bad in context. I like books almost no one else likes, but this was really bad.
Rating:
Summary: Another wonderful one from Ms. Shreve
Review: I have read various Anita Shreve's books and loved them all thus far. Fortune's Rocks is one of my favorites. In Fortune's Rocks, Shreve takes an unexpected spin toward historical fiction. Though this novel sets during the 1800's, the theme isn't different from her previous efforts. And that is not bad criticism. Once again, Anita pulled me in and mesmerized me with beautiful imagery and wonderful character development. This book isn't a quick snapshot into a character's life - it encompasses many years in the young central figure's life. No sooner had I opened the book than I felt Olympia's wonderment, naivete, rapture and longing through Anita's words. This novel enthralled me. I began to despise, to pity and to long for certain characters the moment I read the first few passages. I couldn't put this book down. You won't want to let go of it either. Ms. Shreve, I applaud this wonderful and unique effort.
Rating:
Summary: Spring Break
Review: My mother is a fan of Anita Shreve and had told me the plots of some of her books. I was packing to go on my much needed Spring Break (it's always nice to escape 10 degrees below zero weather)...I was heading to Florida and I always like to have something to read at the beach, whether it be a book or a magazine. It's hard for me to really get engrossed in a book. But let me tell you, this was an AMAZING book to get engrossed in. Here I am on Ft. Lauderdale beach with the waves rolling and the sun shining and half-naked boys all around me, but what was I doing? Laying on my towel, totally ignoring the world around me with my nose in my book. I could not put it down. I finished the novel in a week...too bad I can't read that fast when it comes to Biology text.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Book! Must Read!
Review: This book was a recomendation by a close friend of mine. The book takes you to places that you'd never think an author would take you (for that time period). The romance between these two charaters is one of unforeseen passion. The book will make you want to stay up at all odd hours just to find out what is on the other page. There are so many parts of the book that I read over and over.
Rating:
Summary: A Well-Told Tale Of A Young Girl's Love-Intense
Review: Olympia Biddeford, fifteen years old is spending the summer with her wealthy family in Fortune's Rocks, a seawall in Boston Mass. While there, John Haskell, a well-known doctor/writer will spend the summer there as well with his wife and two children. But soon, there comes a big problem: Olympia falls madly in love with this 42 year old man. They carry on a secret affair until discovery, of course. The discovery creates a huge scandal with both families, and it is then that Olympia and John will have to part ways. They story only gets better from there as Olympia must suffer the consequences for a very long time. I enjoyed the book all the way through and wondered always what would happen next.
Rating:
Summary: Fortune's Rocks
Review: Well just call me sentimental, because I loved the book and found it hard to put down. It's a beautiful tale of a young woman who had the courage to rebuild her life after the worse circumstances imaginable even by today's standards. I was initially tentative about purchasing the book, but am so very glad I did. Anita Shreve is an awesome writer who immediately captures your imagination and carries you along from start to emotionally draining finish. Her sensitive and perceptive understanding of the perils of someone who abandons all for love is quite convincing. I plan to read and treasure all her novels.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but not believable, nor provocative
Review: One would think that with the delicate subject matter at hand there would be many provocative themes and scenes explored. Not so. Shreve's writing is uninspired and particularly strained in the first part of the novel where she tries to imitate the rigid style of the period. It is contrary to her usual style and I applaud her effort to be, as a reviewer said, "Austen-like," but her characters are way too poorly rendered to support the sophisticated language, which became irksome and tedious after a while. I tried very hard to sympathize with Olympia's plight, but whatever tenderness I may have felt for her was really not due to any of Shreve's storytelling but due to the fact that I could personally imagine the circumstances as being very traumatic for a girl not very much younger than myself. I think the main problem was that I could not understand the intensity of the passion between Olympia and John. Shreve simply resorted to elusive references about fate and soulmates and such to explain their "connection," which I thought was cheap, since that should have been one of the most arresting aspects of the story (for those who are not morally allergic to such love affairs, anyway). Perhaps I felt it to be lacking all the more keenly because I had just finished "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving, which also happens to focus (though hardly exclusively) on an affair between a teenager and a middle-aged person (though the sexes are reversed in his case, it is a 16-year-old boy with a 39-year-old woman) and he had dealt with it much more convincingly and powerfully than Shreve.
Overall though, I must say, Shreve is one of the better bestselling authors out there currently and the book, even if often insipid, is entertaining and even endearing. I recommend it if you are not looking for strenuous literature but just a good ol' romance.
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