Rating: 
Summary: When "passion" crosses over the line
Review: This is a thriller of a story that has all the ingredients to qualify as an electric "page turner".The setting of a small coastal town in Maine is eloquently depicted by the author as a refuge for Maureen, the physically and emotional abused wife of Harrold. It is 1971, and we are compelling introduced to a marriage going disturbingly awry. Fueled by alcohol and unresolved childhood abandonment issues, Harrold quickly moves through the stages to be a full-fledged spousal abuser. He is an up and coming New York journalist and moves to seduce the new employee at his office. Maureen, being the newly employed journalist is beautiful, idealistic and malleable. Harrold begins his abuse predictably. Remorseful at first, he promises that the abuse will never happen again. Of course, they do and the empty promises continue while Maureen prays that indeed, this will be the last time. Through courtship, early marriage, pregnancy and post partum, the cycle continues and the tension mounts. Maureen, unsupported and isolated, frightened and repeatedly threatened by her husband suffers for herself and her infant daughter. Fearing for her daughter after one horrific beating, she is finally motivated to escape. Waiting for her husband to lapse into alcoholic unconsciousness, bleeding and literally beaten to a pulp, she takes a few possessions, the baby, and the money in her husband's pocket. She escapes into the night to drive north to any destination far enough away from the hell she has been in. The story shares how the people in town were effected by this young woman with a baby. Maureen changes her name and tries to blend in to the anonymity which she needs to have to elude her husband. The consequences of her actions leave the town changed forever. Unfortunately, at this time in social history, spousal abuse awareness was in it's infancy and support for the victims virtually absent. The majority of people chose to ignore the obvious signs and symptoms, justifying their inability to intervene with morally contrived comments that it was somehow inappropriate to interfere in any "man's" personal family life. For the victim, it was truly a nightmare of immense proportion and social isolation. The book is a remarkable insight into the mindframe of a 1970's victim, abuser, family and bystanders. Group readers will have plenty to grieve, celebrate and expound on. This is a thought provoking novel that continues after the book has been finished. I felt the title even revealed the misunderstanding of spousal abuse at the time. Justified as passion, a man was legislatively allowed to "rape" his wife. I can hear the old statements "she threw a fit" and needed to be "knocked into place." This is when passion and emotions cross the proverbial line and Anita Shreve makes it crystal clear that it is nothing but what it is - abuse.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: I took this book to read on vacation. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down, and ended up without anything to read the last couple of days! I loved the way it was told from different perspectives-the journalist and the people she interviewed for her story. It is extremely well written, but very troublesome. The topic of spousal abuse is handled very differently, as told from a 1970's viewpoint. It is amazing (but true) how people "looked the other way", whether they really knew what was going on or not. There were even some characters who thought "she asked for it"! It is haunting because you expect the journalist, a female, to be more supportive in her article, but is she unsympathetic, or trying to get readers? I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
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Summary: pulls you in from the first page - 17 yr old student
Review: This is my second shreve book, the first one i read was Fortunes rocks, and i was worried that this one wouldnt live up to how great fortunes rocks was, well i can safely say that it did live up to fortunes rocks, and i think was even better. The book was so amazingly written, and like in fortunes rocks you get little snippets of whats to come, so you HAVE to keep reading to discover more details. The story is told from several peoples point of view, which in my opinion made it all the more realistic and wasnt at all confusing. I read this book in just under a day and half, thats how engrossed i was, fortunes rocks took me just under a week.
What i like the most about Shreve is that the 2 books i have mentioned are 2 different storylines, 2 different eras, and 2 different styles of writing, but the one thing they have in commmon and the thing that makes them so worth reading is the raw emotion that they both have, you feel the characters joy, pain and fears, you sympathise with their situations and you hope for the happy ending they deserve.
The characters of both books leave a lasting impression on you for months to come!
If your after an interesting read, this is the book for you.
Esp interesting was each characters view on abuse, and esp the victims, i found it very interesting the way she saw herself
Highly reccomend, and you wont be dissapointed - BTW if i ever found a Shreve book i didnt like, it WOULDNT stop me from reading any of her others because they are all different.
Rating:
Summary: A Realistic Look at Domestic Abuse and Its Aftermath
Review: "Strange Fits of Passion" by Anita Shreve deals with a marriage between two people which appears on the outside to be ideal; however, behind closed doors, there is an entirely different situation. The protagonist flees from her abusive husband to a small town in Maine, taking her small child with her. However, her husband eventually finds her, leaving the reader almost traumatized at the ending, which is not only tragic and violent, but very sad. A wonderful book I highly recommend. One of the best by Ms. Shreve.
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting story; memorable story
Review: Shreve knows what she is doing. What amazing control over her story! There are several narrators, several points of view, and an awareness that no one really knows the Truth. The book sets itself in its own future, with the daughter reading an account of her life written by a now-dead mother. What unfolds is the tale of a savage infatuation and brutal obsession horrifying enough as it is but even more horrifying to our 21st century eyes that now recognize these patterns as abuse. That is the crux of the book. Abuse was never spoken aloud, was never recognized, and lives were ruined because of it. And we can sit here, with our fresh knowledge and be appalled. It is good to know that we can now be appalled.
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Summary: PAINFUL, COMPASSIONATE STORY
Review: This is one of Anita Shreve's best novels, in my opinion.......Maureen and Harrold English, two successful New York Cty journalists appear to have a very good marriage and they have a beautiful baby. No one is aware of the abuse going on behind closed doors. not even Maureen's mother...... Maureen hid all this abuse from everyone, but when she became afraid that Harrold would harm his daughter, she took all the money her husband had in his wallet and while he was passed out drunk she fled into the night with her daughter, Carolne who was just a baby.....She drove from NYC to a small seaside town in Maine to begin a new life as Mary Amesbury. She rented a small cottage by the sea from Julia, a widow......Mary settles down and slowly meets the citizens of this small fishing village and makes friends .....As she begins to feel safe she has to take her daughter to a doctor who had to fax her pediatrician back in NYC to find out what medications Cariline is allergic to.....Her husband is able to trace her whereabouts thru the pediatrician's office and arrives at Mary's house and seriously beats her again.......This story has a violent, unforgettable ending as the town is left with one murder, a suicide, and three children left without mothers......This is a very well structured tale. I don't think you will be disappointed if you read it.
Rating:
Summary: Can't put it down
Review: Anita Shreve is a great author! You can't put her books down.
They are all good. Her stories are real, they are about life, love, death, family...
This is one of my favorites of hers. I think I like her books so much because they flow, are so easy to read. Kind of "light" reading.
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Summary: haunting tale--DON'T be turned off by the theme! not a vic
Review: This is a great book. Don't let the idea of book about domestic violence turn you off. This is deftly written and not a lot of actual descriptions of violence take place. There is a lot of other matters being covered here as well. Please read this. You will not regret it. It is enjoyable and philosophical.
Rating:
Summary: another great book by Anita Shreve
Review: It is my humble opinion but I believe Anita Shreve is the best American write of fiction today. Each one of her books is so different from the other and yet so compelling. I have read everything she has written and Strange Fits of Passion is one of the finest. What intrigues me most about Ms. Shreve's writing is how she manages to avoid the "formula" style of writing that many authors adopt these days. Her books are anything but predictable. Buy this book today, you won't be sorry.
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Summary: Tale of domestic violence in another era
Review: This is my 4th Shreve novel. She hooked me with The Last Time They Met and then The Weight of Water, and disappointed me with Where or When. Strange Fits of Passion, however, grabbed me from beginning to end. Living as I do in the year 2002,and having grown up in the end of the century, I needed the reminder that as recently as 30 years ago, women did not have the options or laws to deal with abuse that we have today. I felt that Shreve captured the way situations of abuse haven't changed much over the last thirty years, yet the way society reacts has. A jury judging an abused woman's actions today knows a lot more about abuse abuse and consequences, since the problem is so much more publicized and understood now. But of course, today Maureen would have had many more resources for getting out of the situation rather than just "going it alone." In addition, Shreve shows how we can let each other down (i.e. the journalist, Willis) in ways that can affect the outcomes of our lives. I found this to be an important thread of the story, since you could say these two characters had as much to do with the direction Maureen's life took as her husband did. The author's writing flows in such a manner that I finish her novels rather quickly, though she is not short on description or character development. I highly recommend this novel.
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