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 enlarge | Author: Anita Shreve
Creator: Blair Brown
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $1.00
You Save: $13.98 (93%)
New (12) Used (21) Collectible (1) from $0.01
Rating:  457 reviews
Sales Rank: 1938316
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1586211005
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781586211004
ASIN: 1586211005
Publication Date: April 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: VHS tape in original box, new, shrink wrapped, excellent, ships from southern California (ccrr)
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| Customer Reviews:
 Don't understand ending July 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've read several of the author's books and all are suspenseful, sometimes draggingly slow. Sometimes you can't undersand the plot due to the long sentences with strange constructions. The love story is such that you feel the ache of the characters. But why the ending? Nowhere does it explain this. It doesn't fit the story at all. And you wait until the last paragraph to get it. Is a sad book and you never really feel happiness. Drags you down.
 One for the recycling bin June 6, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
There was a build up to the suicide in the last paragraph? Where? Was it buried somewhere in the verbose chapters telling of Linda's attitude towards hotels? Was it typed somewhere in those irritating italics?
When I finish a book I usually donate it to a thrift shop. I simply can't donate this book. I would hate to think that someone else wasted a few hours of their life by reading it. I tossed it in the recycling bin instead.
Horrible book. Don't waste your time.
 Ouch. That unbearable foreknowledge of loss... May 19, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Another Anita Shreve's hit, sober, heart-wrenching and full of texture. I had no idea it had a connection to one of her previous books, "The Weight Of Water", which I read years ago (and liked very much). It connects us with one smaller character in that book, Linda, but it is not necessary to read its predecessor to get into this one, as it is not a sequel.
Linda and Thomas meet and fall in love as teenagers, but the story unfolds backwards, after a chance meeting in Toronto, when they are both in their fifties. They have not seen each other in twenty-six years. Their past life with all its joys, flaws and pains resurfaces. The anatomy of a very deep, moving true love is described with such emotional substance, its essence never lost to the reader.
And the end. The surprising ending. I found this novel to be a page-turner and possibly the best one I've read by this author (I've read almost everything written by Ms. Shreve). A love story to be remembered.
 Anita Shreve Fans Certain to Enjoy April 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm an Anita Shreve fan and I liked the way the book started out with the present day events and reflected on events from several years past and then events from much earlier in the life of the narrator. I'm not sure what I expected and I found the book to be a good, solid love story of two individuals who were destined to be together. However, after reading the ending, my reflections made me realize that this may be Ms. Shreve's best work. The ending pulls at the heartstrings of the reader with an ironic twist that leaves the reader thinking and reflecting on the book for quite some time.
Breathtaking in parts...... April 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this immediately following it's prequal (of sorts), "The Weight of Water", and found it to be, overall, less "deep" and ambitious but more enjoyable. I guess on a literary level, the first novel was better constructed and grappled with a wider variety of themes, however, this one read easier for me and I found myself connecting with the characters more emotionally. Being that the fate of Thomas's high school girlfriend is pretty clearly stated in the first novel, I knew as I was reading that things couldn't exactly be what they seemed, although I wasn't sure how Anita Shreve would tie it all up at the end. The last page did catch me off guard entirely, but it didn't quite ruin the novel for me. The beginning section was somewhat dull and impressive, and I only kept reading because I was interested in hearing what Thomas and his former wife had been up to since the horrible events from the first book. The character of Linda was initially completely uninteresting to me. However, things really sprung to life during the Africa section of the book, Shreve did an impressive job with capturing a vivid sense of time, place, and mood, and at that point, the sensuality and sharpness of the writing really sucked me in. The final section was also quite well crafted and painted a tender portrait of the vunerability and sweetness of first love. I also liked the construction of the novel, the backwards story telling. I know Shreve isn't the first person to attempt this and it's probably been done better elsewhere, but it made the story more interesting and helped build up the momentum leading to the climax. By the time I reached the last page, Linda and Thomas had become very real and believable people to me, and although there was something vaguely unsatisfying and maybe even a little gimmicky about the ending, the book rang true on enough emotional levels for me to not hold that agaisnt it. There were a ton of unanswered questions for me in contemplating the ending, and I'm not even really sure I liked how it all panned out, but ultimately the novels' strengths outweighed it's weaknesses and it was well worth the read.
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