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Summary: Life Imitates Art
Review: That Anita Shreve is a very good writer is without doubt. She is a good storyteller and very good with words. However, what struck me about this book was the almost perfect way she captured the exhilirating, wild, throw-caution-to-the-wind, and yet, ultimately disastrous effects of head-over-the-heels love. Such love apparently cannot be sustained and the price one pays for experiencing it is very, very high. That was certainly the case in this novel. Heck...maybe that is the case in every case. I really enjoyed this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Just didn't buy it
Review: Long awaited, Shreve's newest novel seems to have left myself and my coworkers (librarians) simply shrugging our shoulders. Shreve did not convince me that this romance moved the Heaven and Earth at all. Linda and Thomas each had their problems. But the romance?, the fire burning deep within?, I didn't get it. Very good story. But after I am finished, I am still awaiting a climax.
Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: I am an avid Anita Shreve fan but unlike the other reviewers of The Last Time They Met, I was very disappointed in her latest effort. I actually enjoyed the book (although less so than many of her other novels) until I got to the end. The ending, though, was so contrived and so gimmicky, it ruined the book for me. It insults the reader's intelligence. Plus, is ":A Novel" really necessary?
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Summary: Emotional Rollercoaster
Review: I have come to love all of Anita Shreve's novels, and this was was one of her best. For those Shreve fans that have already read The Weight of Water, this one is much, much better in my opinion. For those readers that have not read the precurser - not to worry, you haven't a need to.I was absorbed in Shreve's language in this novel, the poetic and sorrowful way she describes the love that Thomas and Linda could have had. In the story of a love that could have lasted a lifetime, should have transcended time, Shreve is a magician. She has you so enraped in the story, you don't even see the ending coming. I had to re-read the last page 5 or 6 times, then look in the Weight of Water to reference whether or not her words are true. The novel is beautiful and devestating all at once, and Shreve leaves us raw with the weight of what we have learned in The Last Time They Met.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing.
Review: I've read all of Ms. Shreve's novels and this is by far the best. The beauty of some of the sentences literally took my breath away. The storyline is elegant and penetrating.. a page-turner that left me in tears at the end. For those that haven't read The Weight of Water, I recommend that too as each book offers insight into the characters of the other.
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Summary: Wow! Anita Shreve can sure tell a story!
Review: I read this because I loved the way The Pilot's Wife was so cleverly crafted. I expected more of that kind of writing here and I was NOT disappointed. In "The Last Time They Met", Anita Shreve writes a story that reveals secret after secret that makes you gasp at even single words she uses. Her writing is razor-sharp and so cleverly crafted that each time a secret is unveiled, you have to go back to the first clue and marvel and how she got there. This is a wonderful novel about "might-have-beens" and "should-have-dones" and the regrets and decisions that make the tapestry of a life. Well done, Anita!!
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Summary: A PAIR OF SUPERB READINGS
Review: Versatile, prolific and gifted are apt descriptions of Anita Shreve. She evidences these qualities once more in this complexly plotted recounting of a passionate love affair. Dividing her story into three sections, "Fifty-Two," "Twenty-Six" and "Seventeen," allows the author to reveal the developing thoughts and priorities of her two protagonists. "Seventeen" represents Linda Fallon's age when she first met Thomas Janes. She was a teenager separated from her parents. At "Twenty-Six" when the two meet again in Africa, they have both married another and find themselves wrenched by their mutual desire and their loyalty to their marriage vows. Their last encounter occurs when Linda is "Fifty-Two," and both are guest speakers at a Toronto literary event. Blair Brown, often the recipient of professional acting awards, presents a stunning performance in the Abridged version of this compelling tale. Lainie Cooke has run the gamut in speaking roles, and been a band singer. Her reading of the Unabridged version deserves plaudits.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent relationship drama
Review: When semi-recluse, but renowned poet Thomas Janes learns that his peer Linda Fallon will make an appearance at a Toronto literary conference, he decides to attend too. Both over fifty, Thomas and Linda once shared a torrid love affair when both were married other people. That affair ended quite horribly with Thomas and Linda tragically having broken hearts. Now together they look back over time to the moments when their lives converged. Twenty-five years have passed since they had that disastrous love affair, but neither one ever forgot the other over the subsequent decades. They vividly remember back to high school in the Northeast United States where their obsession first began. Linda and Thomas have always wondered whether they could have done something different as regrets of what they both believe should have been still haunt them. Anita Shreve goes back in time to one of her previous novels to resurrect Thomas, husband of the narrator (Jean) of THE WEIGHT OF WATER. The story line uses a reverse chronological order to tell his side of the tale. This technique adds uniqueness though can bewilder a reader at times. The gripping story line works as the audience empathizes with Linda and Thomas yet retains sympathy for some of the support cast impacted by their love for another. Anita Shreve has written a strong relationship drama that her fans will want to reread. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Brilliant companion novel
Review: This is actually a companion novel to "The Weight Of Water" in way. Remember Jean, the photographer from 'The Weight Of water' and her husband poet, Thomas? Well this is Thomas' own very intriguing story. In 'The Weight Of Water', jealous Jean alludes to a car accident which led to Thomas' writing his award winning collection of poetry 'The Magdalene Poems'. This story explains how it all came about. Read And Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Idiotic (possible spoiler)
Review: Do not be deluded by the blurbs--this is NOT a love story. It is a story about one man's selfish obsession with an ideal of a young woman. It reinforces once more the tired point that artistic men would much rather pine and obsess over their idea of love than actually dig in and experience and enjoy the real thing. Slogging through this story until the trick ending--which, while surprising, is also incredibly cheap--was a bad experience. I give the book one star because Shreve describes things colorfully without making little poems in every sentence--a bad habit of many writers of Shreve's ilk. I give her no more stars, however, because of the truly manipulative plot twist (one that was employed just as cheaply, but much more effectively and quite famously, in a legendary nighttime soap opera, then used again to end the run of a television medical drama and later, yet again, to end a Bob Newhart sitcom). Maybe it could have been worthwhile to some degree if one could care about the characters, but Shreve's characterization is very poor. She gives you no reason to care about these people--you don't know them and you don't *want* to know them. Shreve's female protagonist is an empty slate--we are told that she, at one point, was "dangerous," but the only danger she projects from the page is the danger that she will bore you out of your senses. Her male protagonist is a ridiculous drama queen, far more interested in obsessing over some nonexistent ideal of love than actually living the life that is right in front of his face. No one in this book ever does anything with an ounce of common sense, and there is much mooning about and sighing and remembering and unnecessary suffering and longing for what cannot be and. . .oh, well, you get the picture. None of them can get out of their own way and live to the fullest the life that they have, and instead constantly whine for something that they create mostly out of thin air and then relentlessly imagine that they want. Then you find out that none of it mattered anyway. And then you feel like a chump, or you should, because you have wasted your time on a silly gimmick. Did I mention that I think this book is crap?
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