Rating: 
Summary: Ugh...waste of time...
Review: The characters are caricatures, they have no redeeming qualities, and you are told, rather than shown their redeeming characteristics. The illicit love affair is TOTALLY unbelievable, as you're never given ANY reason to think why these two are drawn together.I even reread the last 20-30 pages to see if I missed a big "aha". Nope..that's how it's written. This book is flat, lifeless and poorly written.
Rating: 
Summary: BORING
Review: This book is a real bore. Waste of money. I liked her books so I bought this one. What a drag. Nothing. I mean nothing is new here. What a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Who wrote this?
Review: This book really does not seem to be Plains best effort. The characters lacked depth, not to mention morals. The plot was disjointed and flat. I am sorry I bought the book. If you have not read any of Plains other titles, please do so. This title is just a fluke! She is a wonderful storyteller and you can get so wrapped up in her characters world, you won't want to come back!
Rating: 
Summary: Looking back at the past can be very astonishing.....
Review: This book was excellent. It touched on some very sad issues. But some of these things may very well hurt close friends and family. Some of my friends did not like this story because of the relationship that happened between the father-in-law and the daughter-in-law. This seem likes a love story with a very dramatic and sad ending. I like Belva Plain and I will read some of her other books.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Written But Depressing
Review: This is a great book with a great story line but it is a bit depressing. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Looking Back
Review: What a disappoint. Don't bother paying full price for this book! The first half is not too bad but 50 pages of a leading character wringing her hands, saying over and over (and over!), "I just don't know what to do!" is too much. The ending was totally unbelievable. A real estate agent who only sold houses in the past, suddenly recovers from a breakdown and finds the necessary funding for a major public development, based on the architectural plans which took almost two years to develop by a professional architect but were stolen (and believed to be designed!) by the realor's sister who teaches Latin? Creditable? Save your money. Don't bother!
Rating:
Summary: Not Worth a Backward Glance
Review: What bothered me most about this book is that the characters' language and conversation never rang true. It is set in contemporary times (the young women would listen to CD's) but they all speak and act as if they are in the 1940's! The women seem so false as a result, that it is difficult to care about them. A great and grating disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Not textured or vivid, a silly 'sermonette,' but good story
Review: What can I say? Never read a book of hers, picked it up
as a book on tape at the library, and found it to be rather
entertaining, though it's a moralizing, sermonizing, simplistic piece of work. Another reviewer said it when she pointed out that the characters seem to come from the
forties - it's real "gee whiz" and "oh gosh" kind of stuff.
Hand-wringing, gaping, gasping, wheezing...now and then
a cell phone to remind you that it's contemporary. Hello. If you're looking for a little diversion, but don't want to have to
think very much (unless you can call her periodic sermonizing or philosophizing...."no one ever really knows another person"...thought) take this book to the beach with you. What's sad is that you know someone (the author?) worked very hard to produce this book, but it's kind of empty and charmless. The characters are all rather boring, plodding, prosaic. The visualizations are so lacking that it's hard to get a fix on them. I recommend that the author re-read her Dickens, for a lesson in descriptive characterization. It does have a rather odd ending. So much unbelievable convolution...in a way, it was fun following the author around as she tried desperately to bring it to some sort of conclusion. I have a feeling she didn't have a clue how it would end when she began it, which can make things difficult for a writer. Though a book takes its own strange twists and turns, it helps to have a sound denoument in mind. This had an implausible ending, but hey - you won't lose much sleep worrying over it. I suppose she needed a new swimming pool, or aluminum siding for her country house, and the advance from such a book brought in the money...had to be that, cause what else is the point?
Rating:
Summary: Look for another book
Review: Yikes. Spend your money on another book.
Rating:
Summary: What is friendship, anyway?
Review: You know how some people start at the back of a magazine and thumb their way toward the beginning? Well, I am starting at the end of "Looking Back" by saying I didn't like the ending. There were unanswered questions left in my mind regarding the various situations presented in the book. Leaving some of the characters hanging in the text doesn't suit my wants in ending an otherwise great story. What is friendship, anyway? Belva Plain explores the friendship, which started in college, of three young women and continues into their adulthood. Differences in backgrounds provide interesting exchanges in regard to how each friend deals with similar situations. The friendship continues after college, however, as time passes each becomes more interested in things relevant to themselves. This friendship eventually reaches a point of change, rather than one of growth. Like most of Belva Plain's other books, "Looking Back" is a book I didn't want to put down once I started reading. Some of the events in the story were anticipated, and then I had to struggle with potential outcomes. For example, even though I kept hoping a particular circumstance would or would not happen, the author generated enough uncertainty to keep me from knowing whether it would occur or not. In spite of the ending, I liked the book. Whether you are a Belva Plain follower, or not, you will want to read "Looking Back".
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