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Summary: It's not Dallas
Review: There are clues to the ending, if you look closely. Look at the scene where Thomas and Linda are eating breakast at the hotel. Thomas has a memory of his ex-wife, Jean. He takes his mind of Linda for a moment and she threatens to wink out of existence. Look also at the Boston Christmas day coffee house scene when Linda looks at Thomas and realizes that he is allied to the forces of chaos. Beyond that, there are all sorts of literary foreshadowings: the little girl on her trike who turns up throughout the book, Thomas' love of children, the way he loses his daughter when he dives in to save the woman who reminds him of Linda. The ending is not a cheat. This is a novel about longing, not about forgiveness, for goodness' sake, as it has been billed by people who didn't read through to the end. It's about never getting over something that happened in your childhood and how that can make the rest of your life impossible, unless, like Thomas, you invent a fantasy life which you live in more completely than your real one.
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Summary: A.Schivelbein
Review: I was really disappointed by this book. The fact that there was no actual dialogue was very hard to get used to. I didn't like the way the book unfolded. The ending was so stupid I found myself wondering why I finished the book at all. If you want to read a fantastic book by her read "Strange Fits Of Passion". Now that was wonderful. Skip this one.
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Summary: What a let down!
Review: I really looked forward to reading this book. I thoroughly enjoyed The Pilot's Wife and thought that this book would be equally as enjoyable -- WRONG! This book was a terrible disappointment and waste of valuable time. It was monotonous, going on and on about Africa for no apparent reason and about the signifigance of Mary Magdalene. In spite of this, I kept reading. I knew it would get better. It didn't, though. The ending made NO sense. Like another reviewer, I went back to the beginning to see if I had missed something. I even made my husband listen to part of it, to see if he could make any sense of it! Final words: Don't bother!
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Summary: The Last Time They Met, Book Review
Review: "It is impossible not to keep turning pages, as Shreve, with somber voice leads us on," Susan Dooley of the Washington Post claims of Anita Shreve's latest page-turner, The Last Time they Met.
No one should expect anything less than brilliance from this excellent writer. Past novels by Shreve include The Pilot's Wife, and When or Where, both of which are excellent books. However, neither holds a flame against this incredible new narrative. In both The Pilot's Wife, and When or Where, Shreve gives huge hints to the final outcome of the narrative. However, in The Last Time they Met, only in the last words of the book can a reader fully understand the rest of the novel.
In The Last Time The Met, Linda Fallon encounters her past lover, Thomas Janes at a literary festival. In the years since their paths have crossed, many horrific and life changing events have occurred. This unforgettable novel travels back through Linda and Thomas' paths, bypassing through layers of memories. Shreve tells of a trip to Africa when Linda and Thomas were twenty-seven, and living in Massachusetts, when they were in high school. This novel recreates love at its exhilarating pinnacle through retelling the stories of Linda and Thomas' lives.
Only after reading this beautiful tale of love, loss, and life-long desire, can a reader understand what the meaning of one single word, action, or choice can have over the course of a lifetime.
All should read Anita Shreve's dazzling novel about love, forgiveness, and paths not followed.
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Summary: Book Club disagrees
Review: I finished this book with ambivalant feelings. First I felt as though I had been duped and the I immediately turned back to the beginning and started reading it again to see if there could be a clue I had missed. My book club disagrees with the ending. Hard to get into but worth the effort.
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Summary: Surprisingly Intriguing
Review: This is the first book that I started post 9/11 that has been able to absorb me enough that I read the whole thing. When I realized it was by the same author as the inconceivable "Pilot's Wife", I almost didn't bother to try. But this is different. It does have it's unrealistic moments yet overall, it works. If you can identify with some of the passion Linda and Thomas feel, you will like this book.
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Summary: Knocked My Socks Off!
Review: As I was reading this book I found myself becoming irritable because too much of the story seemed implausible. The ending, though, totally knocked my socks off. I was reeling. Unlike some of the reviewers, I played right into the author's hands. My immediate reaction was, "hey, I've been tricked!" But after pondering it for a day or so, I like how the book ended. Having said that, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did Fortune's Rock. And, I was glad that I had read The Weight of Water before reading The Last Time They Met, not that I needed the background, but simply because it made me feel like I knew the character of Thomas.
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Summary: Feel like I've been "had"
Review: I just finished this book and was told by several people, "Wait til you get to the ending!" . Now I have and I feel like reading it was a total waste of time. What a cheap literary trick. I also found the dialogue and the way it was written in the book, in italics and without quotation marks, very irritating and distracting to read. Glad I only borrowed this one from the library - I would have been disappointed to waste my money on it!
Rating:
Summary: The Last time they met
Review: I am really glad that other people were confused, as well. The first part of the book was very difficult to get through, but after that it was a quick read. Overall, I actually enjoyed it while I was reading it until the last couple of pages, which totally left me hanging. I wish there was something to explain it to me; it is very unnerving!!!
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Summary: Fortune's Rocky
Review: Anita Shreve's latest novel, The Last Time They Met, packs a powerful wallop in that controversial (at least according to these reviewers) ending. Some love it; some hate it, but at least no one seems indifferent about it. And that, after all, is the purpose of stories: to evoke emotions, and those emotions need not be positive. I found myself actually speaking to the book aloud as I approached the last page, saying, "No--this cannot be happening!" But, it does happen, and the experience is profound. Like other readers, I went back through the book looking for prompts--and didn't find them. The reason this is a 4-star review is that rather turgid beginning and a bit too much Africa, but like Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons, for me a test of endurance most of the way, the very last makes the whole journey worthwhile. I only hope M. Night Shyamalan options this book because it reminds me a lot of The Sixth Sense.
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