Rating: 
Summary: Fortune is what you make it
Review: A slow start but rapid read once the story begins to unfold. Set in turn of the century coastal New Hampshire, this engaging novel depicts first love for fifteen year old ingenue Olympia. Unfortunately, her passion is requited by a mature (read: too old for her)physician who has both wife and four children. Both acknowledge their union can only lead to despair, and after an ardent season of lovemaking, they prove themselves correct.
This story probes the loss and restoration of hope and her relationships with father, lover and child as she must confront past mistakes and build her own fortune.
Rating:
Summary: Memories of my youth
Review: I picked up Fortune's Rocks, my first book from Anita Shreve, in the airport as I prepared for a short flight. I had no idea that the storyline would parallel some facts of my life as well which kept me entranced. When we started our initial descent, I remember thinking that I wish I could stay on the plane only to escape and finish this book. I often dislike sad endings as it puts me in a sad mood for the remainder of the day. I prayed throughout the book that it would end the way I hoped. Many twists and turns later.... An excellent choice. I love Anita's writing style. This was one month ago and since, I have picked up her other books. Her storylines tell beautiful heart-felt stories that I relate to so well.
Rating: 
Summary: Sort of readable but forgettable
Review: This novel is trying to be an exploration of passion but comes off as bloodless and wooden. Fifteen-year-old fallen woman Olympia Biddeford, the main character, never comes to life, and the author's attempts to convince us her relationship with a man three times her age is a deep spiritual love is ludicrous. The book is by the numbers, and the attempt at 19th-century speak is irritating. Did not people ever use contractions in their speech back then? I cannot believe they did not, but I shall not argue with the author further.
Rating:
Summary: Fortune's Rocks
Review: I highly recommend this book. I read it while on a flight to Iceland and then on to Finland. Made it seem as though I was going to land amongst the rocks in the ocean!
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL READ ~ you will love this book!
Review: This story grabbed me from the beginning and I didn't want it to end. The writing was eloquent and fit the period perfectly. The plot weaving a young girl and an older, married man into love was powerful and a tense read at times. You could feel their passions. Every once in awhile you come across really beautiful reads, and this is one of them!
Rating:
Summary: Fortune's Rocks
Review: I am a huge fan of Anita Shreve and this book is by far her best effort. I could not put it down and have had the same reaction from everyone I told to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing!!!
Review: I found myself so caught up with the time period, the characters and the plot, I could not put it down. I kept being pulled between reading it every chance I got and trying to savor it slowly! Shreve's descriptions of pre-destined love were so perfect based on my own experience when I met my husband. As I read, I was transported to 1899 and I truly cared about Olympia and John. What more can you ask for in a novel!
Rating: 
Summary: negative stars
Review: I have never read anything so bad. If pick up a book I always finish it. Not this time. 30 pages was all i could bare. The story has no voice. The prose is wretched. The narrator used one voice to tell how everyone is thinking and feeling. And a 15 year old girl would have some flare, any flare to her soul. The prose fits to the time, but, each character, told by the narrator with the same old process makes them stale. She tells the reader how a girl, 15 feels in reading a book that is very mature, but she admits the girl has a hard time reading. Everything in the story is told, nothing is shown. Just didn't make sense. And it will never make sense. You can chop out every third word in this book too, and it might be a bit clearer. In the end, don't waste your time. Show, not tell, is skipped. You have stale characters, you have no flow and you have an author who refuses to let the readers just flow along with the book, to think with the pages. She would say something like. Olympia thinks to herself, that she, in her mind, should go downstairs. Olympia thinks, you don't need to herself written here.
Rating:
Summary: A mind-boggling novel.
Review: "Fortune's Rocks: A Novel" is the first book I ever read in which I became revolted by what I was reading. This novel made me think constantly! How can a man, aged 41, even think of having a love affair with a 15-year-old girl - a girl only a few years older than his oldest daughter! The writing was good, but after reading this novel, I couldn't say I believed Olympia truly loved John (Haskell) - perhaps she was just exploring and didn't know what love was, other than intimacy - nor did I believe that Haskell truly loved Olympia - perhaps he just wanted someone young and pure. Or, perhaps I am looking too psychological into this and they did love each other. I began to wonder how the custody case would hold up in today's court - I guess times haven't changed, now have they? It seemed Anita Shreve was mimicking they style of the old classics, with love and betrayal in the 1800 and 1900s. Nonetheless, an intriguing story - I recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't Put it down
Review: Shreve paints a vivid picture of an affair between a teenage girl and middle-aged married man in 1899. I especially enjoyed the subtleties and innuendos between Olympia and Haskell. Also, Shreve creates a believeable cast of high-society, artsy, seconardary characters who helped propel the story forward. My only critcism is the story's chronological timeline was very vanilla. I think if the book would have been written as a memory beginning with Olympia telling her story to the attorney, it would have been more interesting. Overall, Fortune's Rocks was very enjoyable and a real treat for the reader.
| 
