|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon
The novel does get off to a slow start, with an unnecessarily drawn-out description of a luxury hotel. But it picks up speed as it moves backward in time, from the lovers' vividly evoked interlude in Africa, to their adolescent years in the Massachusetts village of Hull, and finally to Linda's deepest, darkest secret. Only then does the author unveil her final revelation, which should leave most readers somewhat out of breath, and possibly even obliged to turn back to the first page and read the book over again. Shreve is a canny storyteller, and she knows her characters inside and out. (As well she might: Thomas is the husband of Jean, the photographer in The Weight of Water.) And The Last Time They Met is yet another example of the kind of book she does best--one that's as skillfully plotted as a thriller, but with writing that lingers long after the last plot twist is unfurled. No matter whether people actually have affairs like these. Reading this book only makes you wish that they did. --Mary Park --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Idiotic (possible spoiler),
By
This review is from: The Last Time They Met: A Novel (Paperback)
Do not be deluded by the blurbs--this is NOT a love story. It is a story about one man's selfish obsession with an ideal of a young woman. It reinforces once more the tired point that artistic men would much rather pine and obsess over their idea of love than actually dig in and experience and enjoy the real thing. Slogging through this story until the trick ending--which, while surprising, is also incredibly cheap--was a bad experience. I give the book one star because Shreve describes things colorfully without making little poems in every sentence--a bad habit of many writers of Shreve's ilk. I give her no more stars, however, because of the truly manipulative plot twist (one that was employed just as cheaply, but much more effectively and quite famously, in a legendary nighttime soap opera, then used again to end the run of a television medical drama and later, yet again, to end a Bob Newhart sitcom). Maybe it could have been worthwhile to some degree if one could care about the characters, but Shreve's characterization is very poor. She gives you no reason to care about these people--you don't know them and you don't *want* to know them. Shreve's female protagonist is an empty slate--we are told that she, at one point, was "dangerous," but the only danger she projects from the page is the danger that she will bore you out of your senses. Her male protagonist is a ridiculous drama queen, far more interested in obsessing over some nonexistent ideal of love than actually living the life that is right in front of his face. No one in this book ever does anything with an ounce of common sense, and there is much mooning about and sighing and remembering and unnecessary suffering and longing for what cannot be and. . .oh, well, you get the picture. None of them can get out of their own way and live to the fullest the life that they have, and instead constantly whine for something that they create mostly out of thin air and then relentlessly imagine that they want. Then you find out that none of it mattered anyway. And then you feel like a chump, or you should, because you have wasted your time on a silly gimmick. Did I mention that I think this book is crap?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not her best work,
By
This review is from: The Last Time They Met: A Novel (Paperback)
This is the 4th Anita Shreve book I have read, but if it had been the first, it would have been my last. The story is interesting, but it is difficult to follow since 90% of it is told in foreshadowing (or actually, backshadowing, I suppose), and I spent most of my time just looking forward to actually getting the story. Every chapter, you feel like you need to go back and start over again, now knowing what you know. Even though I didn't love it, I didn't hate it until I got to the end. The end gives us a twist that just doesn't work. It was an admirable undertaking, but it doesn't make sense, and it is far from her best work. If you want to read Anita Shreve, try Sea Glass or Resistance. (Or The Weight of Water, which has a character from this book, but I would never have recognized him from anything other than his life events -- there is little similarity between the portraits.)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breathless is not the word,
By nechamah "loves GOOD books" (Israel) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Last Time They Met: A Novel (Paperback)
Even after finishing this book I was talking about it for weeks. I am still amazed at the depth of the story. As soon as I finished reading it I wanted to talk to someone about it, and waited for my husband to come home so I could cry to him about how beautiful the story was. I've recommended the book to everyone I know. The love story was timeless but not too perfect that it was not realistic. Anita Shreve has a way of pointing out the flaws of her characters personalities but at the same time allowing one to understand them anyway. I loved the book and think about it still. Plus Shreve has become a favorite.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
|
