Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not one of her best
Review: This was only my 3rd book by Maeve Binchy, and compared to Evening Class and Echoes, Silver Wedding wasn't near as entertaining. I feel that if Binchy made the novel a bit longer to allow for better character development, Silver Wedding would have been quite a page-turner. However, I enjoyed this book from beginning to end, and I will continue to read anything Maeve Binchy has in print.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not one of her best
Review: This was only my 3rd book by Maeve Binchy, and compared to Evening Class and Echoes, Silver Wedding wasn't near as entertaining. I feel that if Binchy made the novel a bit longer to allow for better character development, Silver Wedding would have been quite a page-turner. However, I enjoyed this book from beginning to end, and I will continue to read anything Maeve Binchy has in print.
Rating: 
Summary: A celebratory tale
Review: Twenty-five years of marriage is an amazing feat in today's society and this book celebrates a couple's marriage. There are secrets involved in everyone's lives and this book is a reflection upon that. There is Anna, the daughter in charge of planning the anniversary celebration, who is in love with an actor still married to his wife and mother of his sons. There is Brendan who fled England back to the Irish farmland that his father had escaped from. There is Helen, the youngest child, bent on becoming a nun in an order that doesn't even want her. There is Desmond, their father, miserable in a management level of a grocery store chain and their mother, Deirdre, who has always tried to maintain the look of happiness and perfection. And they all come to self-realizations in this novel. There is Deirdre's maid of honor, Maureen, who became a successful business woman, and there is Frank, the best man, who is the head of the grocery store chain. And other characters with a delightful insights written by Maeve. This book is nice ~~ it's comfort reading, if you will. It is not, by far, her best book. She has a tendency to string her readers along for more juicy tidbits and end it promptly without revealing any more stories. It's frustrating because it leaves all the questions unanswered. So it's not as good as "Circle of Friends" or "Light a Penny Candle" or her others. But still, it is a comforting read. It is a nice little story of people and friends of a family in England. Though it's not my favorite book, it is still an enjoyable reading. 12-2-03
Rating: 
Summary: A True and Total Dud
Review: Yes, everyone has a tale to tell, and it is the standard Binchy tale: someone is a mistress, someone *has* a mistress, someone feels trapped in his/her marriage... I started off with Binchy, relieved that these were not "romance novels," but three or four books into her plethora, I find them to be glorified Barbara Cartlands. The difference is, in the more recent ones, they all sell food.
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