Rating: 
Summary: Nice novel of parrallel stories
Review: I enjoyed this novel, that tells parrallel stories. The first is of a family (wife, daughter, husband, husband's brother, the brother's girlfriend) who is researching story of a murder that happened in mid-19th century. The second story is that of the family where the murder occurred. The book traces both families and the strange and bad turns that occur in the families and eventually leads up to tragedies in each story. I enjoyed the technique and the stories.
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Summary: Two Lives, Two Tragedies
Review: The prequel to "The Last Time They Met," this is by far the better book. It provides a great deal of insight into the character of Thomas, the melancholy and ultimately doomed hero of the latter. And it also poses, I believe, an interesting question: Is tragedy predestined?It certainly seems so in the two intertwined stories told in this book. The first, based on dual murders that actually took place in the 1800s, is the story of a Norwegian woman who is transplanted to a desolate and uninhabited New England island by her fisherman husband, there to live for many years with little or no human companionship under the harshest of circumstances. Her life is so rigid, so devoid of any tenderness or care, so barren (the fact that she cannot conceive a child is a metaphor for her entire existence) that her ultimate tragedy seems inevitable. The second story is that of Thomas, a poet whose entire ouvre is limited to one collection of brilliant poems, an outpouring of grief and emotion about his first love, tragically killed in a car accident. Married to a photojournalist, Jean, Thomas seems half a person--desperately trying to regain his art, but in his way as barren as Maren, the lonely Norwegian wife. His only real joy is his and Jean's precocious and adorable 5-year-old daughter, Billie, whose mere existence has kept her parents in their difficult marriage. As Thomas and Billie accompany Jean on a photo assignment that will document the historic facts of the murders that changed a small group of Norwegian immigrants forever, Thomas seems to be unraveling. Situated with the others on a schooner piloted by his brother, Rich, Thomas seems to be a cypher, only alive in brief spurts punctuated by interactions with Billie and Rich's flirtatious girlfriend. The steady unraveling of Thomas's sanity (and thus his marriage), juxtaposed against the story of Maren's own unraveling, makes for a heavy reading experience. And yet the book is so well written, and so insightful, that it moves along very quickly toward its inevitable and tragic ending. Highly recommended, especially when paired with "The Last Time They Met," which should be read second, although I inadvertently reversed the order.
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Summary: Storytelling Shreve
Review: For those of you who enjoy Shreve's work, you're in for a delightful treat. For everyone else - you're in for a mixed bag. This is my third Shreve book, having first enjoyed (Oprah's choice) "The Pilot's Wife", and then snoozing through most of "The Last Time They Met". So how does "Weight" hold up? Let me say Shreve is a masterful storyteller; as with each of her books I read, she is able to take a rather mundane story, and twist it into it's surprise ending. Like her other books, "Weight" gives the reader a situation set in the present, tightly woven to a parallel story/history from the past. Easy and enjoyable enough, you'd say, but it's Shreve's writing style which can be a major distraction. One sentence is 'dialogue' from the future, while the adjoining sentence (in the same paragraph, mind you) is from the past. This may be her way of weaving the two stories tighter together, however at first it comes off as confusion, until you fit in to her rhythmn. Needless to say, there's also a lot of 'filler' that slows down, rather than advances the novel - another staple to most of Shreve's works. For those who make it to the end, you're in for an enjoyable surprise, as with all of Shreve's books.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of her best, by far.
Review: This book was... not that great. I have read many others of Anita Shreve's and this one doesn't compare. It was boring, and the only reason I finished it was because I picked it out for school, and had to finish it. I'll give props for the ending though, which was creatively different and wasn't what I expected. Do yourself a favor: get The Pilot's Wife or Eden Close instead. You'll have a much better time.
Rating: 
Summary: The Weight of Water
Review: I found this novel to be superbly written. The prose is so haunting and resonating that it reads like an elegy. I would dare to compare it to Atwood's Alias Grace (my favorite novel). I am surprised that the novel did not receive higher praise. The Weight of Water is similar to The Pilot's Wife in that it grabs you from page one but what differentiates it is its unsettling romanticism, however disturbing as that may be. I would definitely recommend this novel to even the most novice reader.
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Summary: Contrasting torments
Review: This is a carefully crafted and technically excellent book that will appeal to fans of widely varying genres: literary fiction, historical fiction, romance... I was given this book some time ago as a gift by someone who knew my penchant for historical fiction; I must admit to not having read the rest of Anita Shreve's novels, so I don't know how typical or atypical this book is of her work. "The Weight of Water" is told in first person by two women: Jean, the insecure wife of a washed-up alcoholic poet, and Maren, an unhappy bride with secrets ranging from the obscene to the deadly. It is perhaps a backhanded compliment to Shreve's writing skills that she managed to make Maren the more sympathetic character, at least for this reader. This is a highly situational novel that actually tells the separate stories of two dull and shaky marriages: that of Jean and Thomas Janes in our time, and that of Norwegian immigrants Maren and John Hontvedt in the 1870s. The gap of time between the two tales is bridged by Jean's discovery of Maren's handwritten notes explaining what really happened the night of a vicious 1873 axe murder on Smuttynose Island, a murder that Jean, as a photojournalist, is visiting the island to report on. Maren's story is interspersed with Jean's: the two women speak for themselves and while Jean injects a mass of historical detail into the overall story, she never paraphrases Maren's words. Maren's story is one of love and loss: Jean's, one of insecurity and jealousy. Maren shows us what led to her loveless marriage to John Hontvedt, her anguish at the thought of emigrating from Norway, her disappointment at her first glimpse of her new home, and just what a detestable shrew her spinster sister Karen really was. Jean also shows us a catalogue of her own disappointments, all of which seem to have been brought to the forefront by the trip to Smuttynose. Jean and Thomas and their daughter Billie have sailed there on a boat belonging to Thomas' brother-in-law Rich, who brings along his girlfriend, the seductive and well-spoken Adaline. In fact it is Adaline's attractiveness that seems to accentuate all of Jean's feelings of inadequacy: she's instantly jealous, afraid Thomas and Adaline are having sex when she's not around. At the same time she's disappointed by the boredom that characterizes their marriage, a boredom that may be to blame for Thomas' artistic burnout and that she both feels guilty for, and resents Thomas for feeling. The difference between the two women, in my mind, was that where Maren was led to madness by the buildup of a series of tangible pressures - her uprooting from Norway, her 5 years living in a foreign wilderness, her forbidden passions and perhaps most of all her infuriating sister - Jean mostly just comes across as paranoid and whiny. But we don't have to like a book's characters to enjoy the stories they tell, and this is a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Not A Heavyweight
Review: Although this is the first book of Anita Shreve that I ever read, I was expecting it to be as good as Oprah Winfrey claimed this author to be when she endorsed The Pilot's Wife. But unfortunately, this book left me in a dull state of mind because I skipped most of the pages just to end it. The two stories involving central characters Maren Hontvedt and Jean Janes should have been explored in two separate books. To intermesh them together was pointless because the only thing connecting them to each other is the fact that Jean was exploring Maren's involvement with a crime. I think there could have been more said about these two women's lives in separate books. In the middle of the story, it was easy to see who actually committed the crime. After knowing that, going through the rest of the book was downright tiring. The exploration of Maren's life in the book may be something of a wonder to readers, engrossed in the century-old setting but to me, it lost its charm whenever the story of Jean comes into play. Hence, whatever weight this book is supposed to have, it does not hold much to any other gripping book I've ever read. Just my two cents.
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Summary: Also read The Last Time They Met
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Especially since I read The Last Time They Met immediately prior to reading this one. I wasn't crazy about the ending of The Last Time They Met but after reading this one and seeing how they both tie into each other, it made me rethink my reaction and I highly recommend both books.
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Summary: A Needed Look at the Weirdness of Humankind
Review: This book is altogether unexpected. Seemingly innocent throughout the first half, the story about a young immigrant bride stuck on a New Hampshire island and a photographer/mother/narrator blends together seamlessly. The commonalities between the two get creepier and creepier however, as Shreve explores jealousy, suspicion, love, and hate in human beings. The shameful things that come about shake the reader to her very core. This book comes highly recommended for those readers willing to forgive themselves for being human.
Rating:
Summary: This book is wonderfully written and my recent favorite.
Review: I didn't like The Pilot's Wife so I was not going to read another Anita Shreve book. But, I was caught at the beach without a book and a friend lent me The Weight of Water. It's the best book I read year-to-date and I read quite a bit.
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