Rating: 
Summary: Very ordinary
Review: After wading through the first third of the book, hoping for some kind of payoff for my patience, I was not to be rewarded after all. It was basically a very ordinary book; nothing memorable to take away with you. It was forgotten as soon as I closed the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but the ending was weird
Review: I really liked this book. Kathryn and Jack Lyons seemed to lead a perfect life, being very much in love, having a beautiful daughter, and scarcely bickering. But things seemed to fall apart, with that one knock at the door, that late-night knock that every pilot's wife dreads. Not only was her husband Jack gone, but her perfect life was just an illusion. At the last few chapters of the book, I found myself starting to hate Jack, and feeling Kathryn's pain and anger. It took Shreve a while to get the excitement of the book, but once you got there, it was amazing. I was filled with disbelief. The ending kind of fell short though, and I didn't understand it. But over-all, the book was great.
Rating:
Summary: The Pilot's Wife
Review: Not a bad story but a rather wierd ending. Story of wife who never knows her husband who has second family. Story just stops with no closure.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable but Interesting
Review: OK so maybe I am the last person to read this book. Ms. Shreve kept me up for 2 nights to finish this book but I walked away with a sort of ho-hum feeling. The Pilot's Wife finds out that her husband piloted a fatal flight. What ensues is her search for the truth.Just in case Ms. Shreve reads this, next time have Kathryn find Jack living a second life in another place. You could have a blast with him and his second family. The story moves along at a good pace but I was expecting those intriguing twists and turns that make you say WOW. There were none. I read it in two nights because I was so anxious that the WOW ending was just around the corner. The writing is smooth and transition from sentence to sentence makes us speed readers very happy. This is the second book I have read by Shreve. Her When and Where was just as well written but the plot was simple also. This is great beach reading but no literary gem. I bet if Oprah had not endorsed it half as many people would have read it.
Rating:
Summary: Hmmmmmm
Review: This book had a good start, but when it came to the end and to the things that you really wanted to know more about or see more reactions to..it was left short. I could feel for Kathryn, but I wanted to know more about her anger and disbelief once she found out the truth. The book was not all bad so I gave it a 3.
Rating: 
Summary: B E A U T I F U L!
Review: This novel is BEAUTIFUL. That's all that needs to be said. This is such a surprisingly wonderful novel which is easy to read. It took me two hours to read because I couldn't put it down. The Pilot's Wife is a haunting love story which anyone can enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Another great selection by Oprah
Review: Great book, couldn't put it down. But I was disappointed in the ending. It needed a few more pages to wrap it up.
Rating:
Summary: Great beginning,couldn't put it down,by the end-FORGETTABLE!
Review: This book really surprised me. It started out very strongly, developing great interest in the characters and a great plot for people like me who are sure that every plane in the sky is about to come down. The book was, until almost the end, almost obscenely engaging and suspenseful and I finished it in two days. However,it was ultimately very unsatisfying. The reader gets his/her hopes up for a much more profound and meaningful experience than "the PILOT's WIFE ultimately provides. Unfortunately, as a suspense yarn, it's not even second rate. I admit to having enjoyed most of the book because Anita Shreve is a good writer and sets a mood that is uneasy with anticipation of some great revelation of truth or perfidy. Awaiting its arrival made me read it even as I walked through the commuter station. But the book's promise rests unfulfilled. It gives little or no insight into human behavior. The ending was unbelievable, at best, and in no way justified by the early character development. Also, the clumsy way the ending is grafted onto a body it doesn't fit makes me think it was very poorly edited. The early development in the book sets up a much stronger and complex set of characters and events than that which is actually delivered. The rushed mish mash intended to serve as a denouement is blurted out at the end in an almost insultingly contrived manner. There is no care to detail or authenticity in terms of preparing or justifying such an outcome. In fact, it's really quite trite. It might have been a more interesting ending if it had belonged to another book, but it bears no relationship to the story which has been told in this one. I was moved to wonder if the author tacked this ending after it was suggested by a friend who hadn't read the first part of the book! It's like she had a great idea for a book, and then lost steam when she had no idea how to take the set-up any further, so they hired some hack writer to come up with an ending. Instead of carrying through on the promise of some great truth, one very sketchy character blurts out the whole solution to the puzzle at the end. There is no connection between this late "revelation" and any evidence of motivation on the part of the pilot. It seems more than contrived--it's like a cheap trick. Though initially gripping, the characters are two dimensional and don't justify the reader's interest once you realize how little is going on in this story. The daughter is like a shadow of a person--there is no attempt to make her seem anything like a real person, and even the wife is less than robust as a character. By the end of the book, neither the characters nor the plot is believable. Even the suspense peters out before the mysteries are resolved. I was quite disappointed, in that I had found "THE WEIGHT OF WATER" a much more promising effort than this. It seems a somewhat shallow attempt to hit the best seller lists with the kind of story that could be made into a grade B mega-budget romantic movie starring some handsome Robert Redford-type. I don't want to give away any of the suspense, but I must admit, I have a real sense of being ripped off by the deflated ending of this book.
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: This is the first book I've read by Shreve and I liked it well enough. Jack is a Trans-Atlantic pilot who dies when his plane goes down. Kathryn who has been a stay-at-home wife, raising their daughter. She learns that Jack was living another life that she had no clue about. The plot was good, but Shreve's forte is to show the mind and the emotions, where they go and how they make the character behave. She tries to paint the emotions and thoughts of the character in a way that you can feel them also. I particularly liked the way Kathryn's mind would wander, as if trying to prevent her from thinking too hard about the whole mess and save her from the grief. Shreve touched upon a theme in this book that has always intrigued me and given me food for a great deal of thought. Just how well can you ever know a person? Regardless of how long you've lived with them or loved them, can you ever truly know what's inside them. Most people do carry secrets and hold at least some part of themselves back from everyone. Her exploration of this theme is pretty well done. Reading a Shreve novel is an exersize in patience. There are no action sequences, the pacing is slow, but ultimately if you can hang in there, she offers a rewarding read. I also notice that adultery is a common theme in her novels, makes you wonder doesn't it?
Rating:
Summary: DIDN'T LIVE UP TO EXPECTATIONS
Review: I enjoyed the book however felt the first half was slow and dragged on, particularly having to wait until three quarters of the way into the book before "The secret" was revealed. Not my choice for a good holiday read.
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