Rating: 
Summary: Flirting With Disaster
Review: I am a big fan of Anita Shreve, but feel this is not among her best books. The story of the adulterous affair of Charles Callahan and his long lost childhood love, Sian Richards captured my attention, but not my heart. While one does believe that these two are deeply attracted to each other, there was not a deeply felt feeling of consuming love, which is what they are supposed to have. The tale of the childhood love rang far truer for me than the adult love. While we are given some idea of why Charles and Sian are attracted to one another, their respective spouses are not fully developed, and so there is very little understanding of why the two would sacrifice so much of their lives to an obsessive love affair. Ms. Shreve's writing manages to evoke sympathy for the lovers, and there is an overwhelming feeling of longing in the book, but the conclusion to the story is a jolt, and leaves one with an equally overwhelming feeling of sadness. If you want to read an outstanding Shreve book, start with The Weight of Water, or The Piolt's Wife, which in my opinion were far better books.
Rating: 
Summary: Uch!
Review: This book was good enough for a beach read, but the end made me so mad that I threw the book across the hotel room when I finished it. It just ruined the entire book. I felt cheated and as though Shreve just gave up on a real ending and took the easy way out of finishing her novel. Not characteristic of the rest of her books. AT ALL!
Rating:
Summary: Hard to Focus
Review: This is the second Anita Shreve book I have read. The Pilot's Wife was my first. You can definitely get a feel for Ms Shreve's style by reading these two books. Where or When was a slow start and I did have trouble keeping focused on the "real" story due to the fact that she does jump from past to present on a regular basis. A definite good read but the ending is very abrupt and unexpected!
Rating: 
Summary: Great build up, but leaves you hanging
Review: I think any Shreve fan will like this book. But be forwarned that the character development is great in the first half...but will continue to dwindle and ultimately leave you hanging. Yes, it's quite a depressing story, but we all need a little sadness tp appreciate what we do have. I would not reccomend this for a first time Shreve reader, but a great sophmore Shreve read!
Rating: 
Summary: Read other Shreve books, but don't waste your time here!
Review: I am an Anita Shreve fan. I found this story absolutely unengaging, a rarity for Ms. Shreve. The characters are unlikeable and their stories depressing. It is hard for me to imagine that they rekindle a 31 year old romance. I think they are so depressed in their lives and feel so powerless to change their stories, that the attention they give each other is a welcome diversion, not true love. Ms. Shreve uses gimmicks from "The last time they met" in sharing letters between the two, and jumping back and forth from the present to the past. It didn't work for me in this novel, where as "The Last Time They met" was one of my favorite all-time books. Other great Shreve books are The Weight of Water, Fortune's Rocks, Eden Close.
Rating:
Summary: Where or When does the Depression End?
Review: If you check out my other recommendations/reviews you will find that recently I was on a Shreve kick. However, the further I got into her novels, the more depressing and untolerable they became. This has got to be the worst of all. Charles opens the story and goes on about his financial ruin and poor family/marital status. And it just gets worse from there. I picked this one because it was two lost loves reunited, which is always nice, but in this case, I felt ripped off and cheated out of some sense of contentment. (I won't even mention happiness because it isn't in this book.) If you are looking for tradgedy and a weight of doom to follow you a few days after you finish this, then by all means hurry and read this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Where or When - a review
Review: Where or When, What starts off a simple love story, soon involves the reader, to such an extent that every thought and invovlment shared by the two principal characters, in the story, are built upon layer by layer until when, at the very last page and on the very last line of the novel the reader is left as shattered and bereft as Sin Richards is left sitting alone on the stone bench surrounded by a snow covered feld. The ending of this novel, stayed with me for days after I had finished it. The flashbacks, to when the couple first met were, for me, the highlights of this novel. Even now, I can re capture my own moments in time, (times passed) upon the chance hearing of a song. So too, in Where or When, the theme of the novel, the very essence of the passion that is shared between Charles and Sifn, is mirrored in the Words of the Song, Where or When. I thought the book was beautifully written and became thoroghly engrossed in what was going to happen, to the two lovers. The ending though.......well, that is something else.!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Painfully sad
Review: This is the first book by Anita Shreve that I read, and I had forgotten that it was by her until after I read The Pilot's Wife. Taken in the context of her books, I can see its value and see how it picks up oncertain recurring themes that she has been dealing with for a long time, but it is clearly an early novel and not up to the wonderful standards of her more recent work. It is an extremely sad story--two people who are deeply longing for understanding and fulfillment and who find each other again as adult, after years of seperation. The descriptions of their paifully empty lives and almost too difficult to read at times, and the excitement and passion that grip them when they are together is intoxicating. However, I was frustrated by the stereotyping of the supporting characters and the bleakness of the lives portrayed. I am also puzzled by the ending, which can probably not help but be bleak, given the corners that Shreve has painted her characters into, but it seems almost too painful and morally judgemental, taken int he context of the story which she has very carefully developed. I kept waiting for there to be more--waiting for a different ending.
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: This book has been on my mind ever since I read it. I didn't like the ending at all, too harsh. But after reading other books by Anita Shreve, I realize that's a given. An excuse for all the secret loving? I remember the characters alive, so the end doesn't do me in.
Rating:
Summary: Slow start but worth it...
Review: Took me a while to get into this book but once I got passed the first couple of pages, I couldn't put it down. I work at a bookstore and another employee and I go through these phases where we pick an author and read all the books by him/her. We read Jodi Picoult, we're on Anita Shreve right now and next I believe is Sue Miller. I don't want to give away any parts of this book but if you start reading it and find it to be not that great, keep going, it gets really good.
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