Rating: 
Summary: GREAT SUMMER READING!
Review: Anne Rivers Siddons novels are so well written better yet it is best to listen to her stories on Audio. I could drive around all day!!! I have read 3 of her novels and eagerly await to start another. It's as if you really get to know the characters and their surroundings. The words are beautifully written.
Rating: 
Summary: Up Island is down for the count
Review: The book starts off with some interesting characters, one of the best of which is the witch-y, grasping mother, who (unfortunately for the plot and the readers) croaks right when she gets to being nastiest. It reads like the poorest of formulaic shmoozing---you've got your sultry South, you've got your sleepy New England village, you've got your Wuthering "Heathcliffe" thinly disguised as a dying creep, who could have been interesting if only he'd done more than WHINE. And you've got your gratuitous, graphic, unemotional sex. Plus, the heroine NEVER SOLVES HER OWN PROBLEMS. Time and again she is rescued by some bystander who plays a minimal role and just comes along with a blast of cavalry bugles. The writing deserved a better story. The story deserved, well, maybe to be drenched in brandy and flambee'd. The only cliche missed was to throw in a Crown Prince of somewhere. Miss it.
Rating: 
Summary: This book stayed with me after I finished it.
Review: This was the first ARS book I read, and I found the characters rich and original. A Martha's Vineyard winter is vividly portrayed, and while the pace is slow, there are enough surprises to keep the reader involved.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't judge Martha's Vineyard by this book
Review: Poor Anne Rivers Siddons...She writes a book about a plump southern wife who wraps herself in saran-wrap as a failed attempt to titilate her cheating husband. Maybe Anne is the plump wife? This book was given to me by someone who went to Smith College and I thought she was very intelligent. She loved this book. She is also a bored and lonely 23 year old mother married to a 55 man. Yes, for someone whose life is this awful, I can understand how 'Up Island' could be entertaining. But for me, shoving bamboo shoots into my fingernails seemed more pleasing to me than finishing this book. The only reason I finished the book was so I could spread the word about how completely awful it is and the Anne Rivers Siddons is the rock in my back. If you have only read terrible Harlequin romances, this book would seem like a masterpiece. Read 'We The Living' by Ayne Rand if you want to learn about real women. And last, all the characters were so predictable. Of course the the one-legged gimp/love interest for the lonely wife would be cruel and heartless because he was scorned by life. One would have to bound and gag me to read another of Anne's 'lonely housewife books'.
Rating:
Summary: The author needs a better editor
Review: It has all been said here already. This is "literature lite," but doesn't pretend to be otherwise. I have been listening to this book on tape in my 100 mile commute back and forth to work, and I noticed the constant use of two word that jar: literal (or literally), which the author uses inappropriately, and flame, as in cheeks flame. Come on, Siddons, you can do better than that. Use a thesaurus!
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable...
Review: I really enjoyed this audio book. The main character, Molly, was a little flakey at times, but overall a very enjoyable book...
Rating:
Summary: BORING!!!!
Review: No plot, boring characters. After the husband leaves her in the very beginning of the book, it's all downhill from there. Don't even bother with this one. It's not worth your time!!
Rating:
Summary: This was a fabulous book!
Review: Anne Rivers Siddons has outdone herself in this tremulous story of a family come undone. Her character descriptions are lively and charming, the characters themselves are very vivid and alive throughout the book. Her description of the effect of Tee's sordid affair with a younger woman, and mostly the conflicting emotions that follow in it's aftermath, are wonderful. I found myself truly relating in it's entirety, and I plan on reading more of the author's books. The underlying message I received, loud and clear, was that a family is really just a group of joined hearts, and can be found wherever there is love.
Rating:
Summary: Made me go to places I did not plan to go.
Review: Typical of Siddons, she deals with a woman who thinks that life is stable only to find her world dissolving. She finds a new life and family in an unlikely, remote spot in Martha's Vineyard with aging, dying people. She led me into a better understanding of Lesbian relationships, coping with terminal illness, and the devestation of loss of a mate.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat entertaining, a quick read, but not Siddons' best.
Review: Up Island is the closest Siddons has come to Colony, a marvelous book. However, this one is a bit unbelievable and somewhat cliched (Molly's selfish children reminded me of the one-dimensional characters in a Danielle Steel novel -- it was obvious that they were simply there as devices to make us pity Molly). And I found it extremely hard to believe that two debilitated, infirm old women would be sexually involved with one another. It was certainly more than I wanted to know, anyway!
|
