Journal Entry 1 by summermarie from Clifton Forge, Virginia USA on Monday, March 17, 2003

I bought this book off of half.com @ eBay. I bought it for the sole purpose of reading for next months (april 2003) Bookcrossing meetup. It was decided that every month we would pick out a book to read for the next month so there would be something to talk about! I can't wait to read it... 

Journal Entry 2 by summermarie from Clifton Forge, Virginia USA on Monday, May 26, 2003

INSIDE DUST JACKET

A stunning new work from Anita Shreve, the author of the acclaimed bestsellers The Pilot's Wife and The Weight of Water, Fortune's Rocks is a profound and moving story about unwise love and the choices that transform a life.

On a beach in New Hampshire at the turn of the last century, a yound woman is drawn into a rocky, disastrous passage to adulthood. Olympia Biddeford is the only child of a prominent Boston couple---a precocious and well-educated daughter, alive with ideas and flush with the first stirrings of maturity. Her summer at the family's vacation home in Fortune's Rocks is transformed by the arrival of a doctor, a friend of her father's, whose new book about mill-town laborers has caused a sensation. Olympia is captivated by his thinking, his stature, and his drive to do right---even as she is overwhelmed for the first time by irresistible sexual desire. She and the doctor---a married man, a father, and nearly three times her age---come together in an unthinkable, torturous, hopelessly passionate affair. Throwing aside propriety and self-preservation, Olympia plunges forward with cataclysmic results that are the price of straying in an unforgiving era. Olympia is cast out of the world she knows, and Fortune's Rock's is the story of her determination to reinvent her broken life---and claim the one thing she finds she cannot live without.

A mediation on the erotic life of women, an exploration of class prejudices, and most of all a portrayal of the thoughts and actions of an unforgettable young woman, Fortunes Rock's is a masterpiece of narrative drama, beautifully written by one of the most accomplished novelists of our time.

SUMMER'S OPINION

I was enthralled with this book. I started it and for the first few chapter's, I kept thinking to myself "I am going to quit reading". It was a book unlike ones I had read before. But I was determined, as this was to be read for a book club, so I kept reading. At this point, I was really hating the book. Then...it was wonderful. I got into it in a way that I never imagined. I was out of town when I was reading, and every person that I spoke with, I had to tell them about this book! And then to my surprise, I hated the book...was ready to set it down again. And so on and so forth. The love-hate relationship continued to grow up until the very end. I must let all readers know, however, it totally ended in a loving manner. The cause, I believe,for the love-hate is the face the Ms. Shreve chooses very touchy and heavy opinionated subject about which to write. In this particular book, there was a May-December relationship, an affair, a stolen child, banishment, and court trials. There is reference to the foreign mill-workers of the era who worked for little to nothing and suffered from everything. Anita Shreve is a true artist when it comes to pulling at the emotions and making you feel just as the character feels. I would encourage everyone to read this book and I, myself, am on a mission to read all of her other to see if they are just as remarkable.

If you to would like to learn more about this and other novels by Anita Shreve, click here to go to her website. 

Journal Entry 3 by summermarie from Clifton Forge, Virginia USA on Monday, May 26, 2003

I am considering starting a bookring with this book! 

Journal Entry 4 by summermarie at Post Office in Covington, Virginia USA on Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Released on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 at Post Office in Covington, Virginia USA.

I just mailed this book out this morning to JAMIEH2003 in West Virginia for its first stop in the BOOKRING! 

Journal Entry 5 by jamieh2003 from Wiley Ford, West Virginia USA on Friday, November 21, 2003

Received in yesterdays mail for summermarie's bookring. I'll be starting it this evening. Thanks summer! 

Journal Entry 6 by jamieh2003 from Wiley Ford, West Virginia USA on Sunday, November 23, 2003

While it started off a bit slow for me, by the end I was so thouroughly enmeshed in the tale I wanted another hundred pages or so. Shreve's tale of forbidden love and its consequences was revelatory. I actually found myself nearly weeping at portions of it.
Thanks so much summermarie for the opportunity to read this book! I've PM'd the next person and will get this out in Mondays mail. 

Journal Entry 7 by jamieh2003 at on Monday, November 24, 2003

Journal Entry 8 by bookaddict22 from St. Louis, Missouri USA on Sunday, December 14, 2003

Received in the mail from JamieH2003 in West Virginia. I'm so eager to dig into this book- I have two other books in the works and promise to get to Fortune's Rocks as soon as possible and onto MJM in Kansas! Thanks summermarie for sharing! 

Journal Entry 9 by bookaddict22 from St. Louis, Missouri USA on Monday, February 16, 2004

Mailed to MJM in Kansas on Friday, 02/13/04. Enjoy! 

Journal Entry 10 by mjm from Draper, Utah USA on Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Just received in the mail today. I'm excited to get to this as soon as I can. I have a few ahead of this, so I'll get on it ASAP! 

Journal Entry 11 by mjm at Hoover, Released to fellow bookcrosser as bookring- in -- Mail, post, or by hand-rings, RABCK,meetings), Alabama USA on Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Released on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 at Released to fellow bookcrosser as bookring- in Hoover, Alabama USA.

This one breaks my heart because I really wanted to read this book, but I have to keep it moving! Grad school and reading for pleasure just don't mix. Mailed on to WarEagle78. Hope you enjoy! 

Journal Entry 12 by WarEagle78 from Hoover, Alabama USA on Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Arrived in Alabama today, will journal again when read. Thanks summermarie for sharing and mjm for sending on to me! 

Journal Entry 13 by WarEagle78 from Hoover, Alabama USA on Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Shreve is truly a master. Her tale of a Victorian era adulterous relationship between a teenage girl-woman and a middle-aged physician is beautifully told. What is Shreve's strength? Well, her descriptions are wonderful. Precise, elegant, not a needed word unwritten but not a word extra either. I could see, hear and smell the locale of Fortune's Rocks and the former convent. In fact, I'm carrying in my mind visions of the mother's room and Olympia's spare redecoration of the house even now.

But Shreve's strengths could just as easily be in writing of relationships. I could understand and even be drawn in to Olympia's relationship with her lover as well as with her father. Even when I intensely disliked her actions, I felt as if I fully understood and could share her pains and her exaltations.

Finally, Shreve's plot excelled. The story moved from the unexpected to the totally predictable and back again.

I enjoyed the book far more than I expected. I so appreciate you sharing it, summermarie. 

Journal Entry 14 by WarEagle78 from Hoover, Alabama USA on Wednesday, October 27, 2004

On its way back home to summermarie. Thanks for sharing! It's a shame we could not drum up interest to extend the ring. 

Journal Entry 15 by summermarie from Clifton Forge, Virginia USA on Tuesday, November 02, 2004

This book has finally returned home to me from its many journies...I must say I was quite excited to get it back in my hands! I hope that you all enjoyed this bookring and I want to thank each of you for participating! I hope we all meet again someday along the way!