Rating: 
Summary: Surprise ending...
Review: ...if you can make it that far. It took me - ready? - over a month to read Islands. I'd read a chapter, get bored and put it down, pick it back up and read a little more, get bored again...and I skipped ahead a lot to see if the story was ever going to pick up. It didn't.
Basically this is the story of how a pack of over-indulged snobs from Charleston grow into crotchety over-indulged snobs at a beach house. That's it - that's all that happens. People die, houses burn down. The story picks up a bit once Gaynelle comes on the scene but that happened long after I lost interest.
I should just post the spoiler and save you all the cost of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: enjoyable
Review: Although Islands is by no means as good as Outer Banks, Colony or some of ARS's earlier books, I do feel that this is better than her last few. I bought the book because I love ARS but I was worried that I would not enjoy based on several of the reviews. I found it to be a very enjoyable read and more true to her style of writing.
Rating:
Summary: It's All In There
Review: Anne Rivers Siddons' very best double decker family saga. You won't be disappointed.
If you're looking for a different and exciting novel, read LUST OF THE FLESH by Beverly Rolyat. A story about district attorney, Nick Allapapalaus, who finds himself caught up in a web of lust, deceit, mystery, suspense, betrayal, murder and sex galore. Is he really the biological father of his ex-wife's promiscuous teenage daughter's infant son? Or has he been set up? A compelling, riveting, engaging, pageturning novel. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: BORING
Review: Before I left for the holidays, I picked up a few books to read. I remembered one of my relatives highly suggested Siddons' "Colony". The store I was in did not have Colony so I picked up "Islands". While I love to read all kinds of books and relish the different writing styles, this book was an absolute torture. It's about a group of spoiled, completely self absorbed adults with no aim in life except to 'be'. The story is incredibly shallow, yet with an enormous amount of silly details that don't tie into anything within the story. All along while reading, I kept saying to mayself this has to get better, NOTHING can be this bad...folks, it NEVER does. Actually, I found it got progressively worse with each page turned. If, indeed, Siddon's other works were decent perhaps this one was simply written to ride on the coat tails of the previous successes for nothing else but quick release and quick $. Not worth folks. One of the worse reads I ever spent time on!
Rating: 
Summary: nice sense of place; sloppy craftsmanship
Review: I am not a regular reader of Ms. Siddons' work, so I can't compare this book to other titles as some reviewers can. I found the book moderately enjoyable. I appreciated the sense of place that Siddons created, especially when describing the creeks and marshland.
I thought the characters were fairly well fleshed out, though I was not particularly drawn to any of them. The book would have benefited if Siddons had given the reader a bit more foreshadowing, making Camilla's action toward the end of the book seem more plausible.
I was aggravated and distracted by several examples of pure carelessness. On page 274 of the paperback edition, Lewis Aiken's first name is spelled Louis. Then there's Rusian (yes, one "s") dressing on page 263. Henry's eyes are hazel when Anny first meets him at the beach (page 79). When he returns from the Yucatan, they are described on page 290 as "sunken blue eyes." These instances of sloppy writing are just the ones that happened to jump out at me; I bet there are similar errors that I overlooked. I find this carelessness disappointing in such a well-known writer.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage Siddons
Review: I am not going to summarize the book, amazon does that quite well! So just my review...
I am a huge fan of Ms. Siddons', I have been reading her books from the first. She is the type of author that you take her book and not just read it, but wrap it around you, and you become a part of her story. This book was no exception. I really liked the characters. Of course the setting, as in so many of her books, was another character.
I gave it four, (really wanted to give it four and a half), instead of five only because of the ending. Something happens at the end,that I think needed a little more story. I felt like maybe her editor told her to hurry up. Overall though, a really good read, and well worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: It took much disipline to finish reading!
Review: I have been a big fan of ARS for a long time. I've read most of her books, some of them were so good I could hardly put them down. I have lived in several of the locales she has written about and could relate to the people, climate,etc. Ms. Siddens, what happened to you this time? I was bored the entire book but kept reading thinking that it HAD to get better-----It never did. Ms. Siddens, I have to say you really missed the mark with this one, it is awful.
Rating: 
Summary: Not One of Her Best
Review: I have been an avid reader of Anne Rivers Siddons books since "Homeplace", written in the late '80's. Her last three books, have been very disappointing to me including "Islands".
While Siddons still has a "feel" for the Carolina Lowcountry, where I live, she has lost her ability to make her characters seem plausible and alive. Her plot in this last book is disjointed and boring. I almost put it down without finishing it but then read about the strange ending so I perservered and sure enough, the ending was terrible. Upon closing the cover I had to pronounce it a waste of time and the ending disjointed from the plot. It made no sense to follow these close friends through years of ups and downs only to find out one is a murderer! I sincerely hope Ms. Siddons can and will return to her writing style that was present in "King's Oak", "Colony", and the "Outer Banks". These, to me, are her best efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Not One of Her Best
Review: I have been an avid reader of Anne Rivers Siddons books since "Homeplace", written in the late '80's. Her last three books, have been very disappointing to me including "Islands".
While Siddons still has a "feel" for the Carolina Lowcountry, where I live, she has lost her ability to make her characters seem plausible and alive. Her plot in this last book is disjointed and boring. I almost put it down without finishing it but then read about the strange ending so I perservered and sure enough, the ending was terrible. Upon closing the cover I had to pronounce it a waste of time and the ending disjointed from the plot. It made no sense to follow these close friends through years of ups and downs only to find out one is a murderer! I sincerely hope Ms. Siddons can and will return to her writing style that was present in "King's Oak", "Colony", and the "Outer Banks". These, to me, are her best efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Siddons Fails To Maintain Intensity Of Her Usual Novels
Review: I have read all of Siddons' books over the years and some were better than others. One expects an author to become more adept at suspension of disbelief and capturing the reader in a web of tendrils from which we do not want to be let go, even to not putting the book down till we are finished.Not so this time. The first half of the book literally sings with Siddons' usual command of our senses as we experience Charleston and the low country once again. She makes one yearn to be there with her, to feel the warm sand under bare feet and to experience the heat and humidity as well as the graceful and langourous people she populates her books with. But something goes wrong in the second half of the book: one begins to sense what is coming; what the secrets are, and it is hard not to see the comparison between Anny and Maud in COLONY, as well as the same scenes simply reworded but not entirely disguised. This is expecting the reader to have forgotten a plot turn of another book or else to agree it is fine to use it again. I found Siddons' best works to have been FOXES EARTH, COLONY, and OUTER BANKS. This book is good but not great, in my opinion. I will continue to read each new book of hers and hope to find again the one that holds me in her spell till the last word.
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