Eden Close

Rating:
Summary: not your usual mystery novel
Review: The setting of this story includes two farmhouses, side-by-side, but remote from anything else. The families living in them, each two parents and a child, are so different from each other yet unable to be completely separate because of geography. In the middle of the night, a scream and a shot ring out from one house, and both families are changed forever.

This novel is a lovely bit of writing with a little flavour of a mystery novel thrown in. I like Shreve's conservative, contained writing style, and her characters are all quite realistic. A few parts dragged just a little, which is why I didn't give it a higher rating, but overall this novel doesn't disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Eden Close - Anita Shreve
Review: This was definitely a unique storyline, and I found it refreshing and interesting. However, I did not feel an urgency to finish this book. I put it down several times and was never in much of a rush to get back into it.

Anita Shreve created an interesting plot, however depressing it was at each turn of the page. Eden's story is tragic, and the many "surprises" were not really hard to figure out long before they were brought into the open. An interesting read, but predictable and tragic.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing
Review: I loved this book - in my opinion it is better than 'The Pilot's Wife'.
Eden is beautiful and mysteriously haunting, Shreve seems to stir up a range of emotions in me through Eden.
Simple, easy to read and wonderfully written - a kind of tragically beautiful masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: This Anita Shreve novel was captivating, titilating and a quick read. Your really feel the emotion of the main characters Andy and Eden. I was totally sucked into the tangled web!!

Rating:
Summary: Predictable but Sensitive
Review: Most of Anita Shreve's books contain a mystery and most end with a dramatic twist; "Eden Close" is no exception. The problem is, most readers will be able to guess the ending twist long before the last page. This doesn't, however, negate all the fine points of this sometimes lovely, sometimes harrowing, book.

As the book opens, Andrew, then a teenage boy, hears shots coming from the neighboring farmhouse where a tragedy is in the making. The book then flashes forward to Andrew as an adult and his meeting with Eden, the teenage girl who was his neighbor at the time of the tragedy. Gradually, piece by little piece, we learn the details of what took place that night and the (sometimes) surprising facts of the tragedy itself.

Eden and Andrew were close friends as teenagers; Eden was even made an "honorary boy" by Andrew and his friends. This was good for the adopted Eden, for, while she was adored by her father, her mother saw her as little more than an intrusion. As they grew, however, Andrew and Eden naturally drifted apart and Andrew eventually lost all contact with Eden until he returned to his home town as an adult. As Andrew and Eden rebuild their friendship and become close once again, we learn, with Andrew, the details of the tragedy that befell Eden that night so long ago.

I think Shreve is especially good at description in this book. She really catches the feel and ambiance of "small town USA." Additionally, both the present action (which takes place when Andrew and Eden are adults) and the flashback action (which takes place when Andrew and Eden are younger) take place during oppressive summer heat. Shreve seems to have used this heat to link the two sections and achieve a common bond between them. If that is truly what she has done, it works and it works well.

The characters in "Eden Close" are fully drawn and very believable. They act in ways keeping with the personalities Shreve has given them, even when they are confronted with the most disturbing elements of the book. I think Sherve did a particularly good job at bringing Andrew to life; his guilt over his past was easy to feel, as was his need to rehabilitate himself psychologically.

It is very easy to become emotionally involved with these characters and their plight. And, unlike "The Last Time They Met," Shreve does reward us for our caring. But "Eden Close" is far from a sentimental book with a "feel good" ending. In fact, there may be a touch too much melodrama in this book, but just a touch. Overall, the story tension is balanced and it certainly holds our interest despite its rather predictable end.

"Eden Close" is definitely not Shreve's best work. I think you need to read "The Weight of Water" for that. But "Eden Close" is well-written and intriguing. Some readers may not like Shreve's poetic use of language, but I did and I thought it fit this storyline very well. And, despite the fact that I could guess the "secret" tragedy of Eden's life, that didn't stop me from enjoying this book. It was enjoying to see how the characters dealt with the past and how it would impact their future. Shreve is a good storyteller and she is very good at portraying ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations.

Although the storyline is a bit over-the-top, Shreve did handle the details with sensitivity and caring. Despite some flaws, and despite not being Shreve at her best, I still think "Eden Close" is well deserving of four stars for its very good points, most particularly the beautiful use of the English language and the sensitivity with which Shreve has endowed her characters.

Rating:
Summary: Trite and Predictable - unusual for this author
Review: If this is Ms. Shreve's debut novel, she's come a long way, baby.

It took me all of twenty pages to figure out how the entire story would unravel, and the only reason I stuck it out was because I thought surely (surely!) she would offer a twist.

No twist.

In addition, the story was packed with trite details (Andrew and Martha met in college during war protests? Yawn.).

But what really got to me were the COMMAS. Help. The author's profuse use of commas became a distratcion, with snake-like sentences uncoiling down entire paragraphs, perhaps in some desperate, but effective, I suppose, effort to control the cadence of sentence flow, for the reader, and the listener, should the story make it to Books On Tape.

Ack.

Her other work is much better.

Rating:
Summary: Not her best
Review: Anita Shreve is one of my favorite authors but I wouldn't call this one of her best. It's not that I didn't like it either~I just didn't get real into it.It took me quite a long time to read it.The storyline was good & despite the simplicity of it & the draw out part before the plot was formed--I did like it. I thought it was worth reading & all. But if you wanna read something from Ms. Shreve--don't start with this.Try Fortune's Rocks or The Pilot's Wife.I just don't think it was all that good.

Rating:
Summary: A FIRST RATE DEBUT NOVEL...
Review: This, the author's debut novel, is a well crafted, fictional work that keeps the reader turning its pages. The book is premised upon unfinished business in the past that needs closure, before the future can begin anew. Here, Andrew, a divorced man in his mid thirties, returns home to the upstate New York town in which he grew up, in order to attend his mother's funeral and take care of her estate. Being there, in his childhood home, brings back memories of a night, half a lifetime ago, in which his neighbor's home reverberated with the sound of gunfire, forever changing the life of his childhood friend and neighbor, Eden Close.

Adopted by Jim and Edith Close after being left in a box on their doorstep shortly after her birth, Jim lavished love and a great deal of physical affection on Eden, while Edith always remained strangely aloof from this beautiful child whom she seemed to view as an intrusion in their lives. Eden, friends with Andrew while growing up, was blinded in the terrible tragedy which engulfed her home one night and saw Jim Close killed. Withdrawing from the world at large, she remained a virtual recluse in her adoptive mother's home, while Andrew got on with his life, went to college, and left home.

In returning for his mother's funeral, Andrew sets about trying to unravel the mystery that has enshrouded Eden since that terrible night. The author gives the reader glimpses into the past through a series of flashbacks, which show the bittersweet relationship that Andrew and Eden had shared when younger, a bond which to this day had remained unbroken. It is this unspoken bond that prompts Andrew to try and bring Eden out of her reclusive state. It is an attempt that is to have great ramifications for all. The author weaves a seamless tapestry that fully engages the reader. It is a haunting and beautifully rendered story that will leave the reader eagerly awaiting the author's next book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Another one of Shreve's great works, the character of Eden Close is one I found myself feeling sad for, as well as many of the other characters. It seems they are stuck in the past, and need to find a way to relinquish it and not be so effected by it. It is a haunting book, and one that will effect the reader for days after finsihing it. It is beautifully written and compelling.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: Another one of Shreve's great works, the character of Eden Close is one I found myself feeling sad for many of the characters. It is a haunting book, and one that will effect the reader for days after its completion. It is beautifully written and compelling.