I ended up buying this even though I had it already on my shelf. First time by the way, but not probably last. My excuse is that this is different cover I had at home. Well, we do have Bookcrossing!

"When Linda Fallon and Thomas James meet at a writers' festival in Toronto, it is the first time they have seen each other for twenty-six years."

It got better towards the end and the ending got me shivers.

This book was at one of my friends place and when ever I was there and had left book at home (rearly) I read this. That is why I read this in several pieces and it has its effections. I didn't quite remember what had happend at the beginning and I need to scan backwards several times. Nevertheless a good read.

I'll take this with me to our first meetup 2008 at oofiri´s place. Hopefully this will get a new reader.

This book was one of the ones left on the table after the BC meet. As the table was located in my kitchen, I'm doing the honours.

RELEASE NOTES:

Heh. I got interested in this when I saw it being released, but it wasn't there when I went to look for it, a couple of hours after the release. Then today, I found it on the shelf as I passed by. So whoever you are who took it out for a while, thanks for putting it back!

Well, this book just kept pushing all the wrong buttons for me. I got that it's supposed to be a tragic love story, but it never felt like it was happening to real people, more that the characters were acting like they think characters in a tragic love story are supposed to. Everything, all words and actions, has Deep Meaning that everyone is constantly aware of. It works in dream-like and magical stories, but not in one purportedly describing the real world. Real speech has a lot of fluff in it, too, and that, I've noticed, is important in a character-driven story.

I might have endured the constant meaningfulness of the dialogue if it just hadn't been so immensely pretentious too. Is this really how writers speak or just poets? This was at it most annoying in the middle part, told from Thomas's perspective. Linda was more palatable, though not by very much.

The Kenya part, especially the letters, totally drove me up the wall. The constant agonizing and self-flagellation over the relationship, described in such florid prose, was just aggravating. I kept thinking, confess to your spouses, run off to the plains together, copulate like minks, and get trampled by elephants, please! Anything but this. I can appreciate the tragedy of the situation, but they were just being way too emo about it.

I don't know how much to say about the ending, in case someone reads this entry before reading the book. There was enough foreshadowing that I could see it as a possibility, but I thought that ending didn't suit the book at all, so I kept hoping I would be wrong. Alas, no such luck. Another reading to pick up more on the foreshadowing might help, but I doubt I'm going to do it.

The writing I would describe as competent, but definitely wouldn't call it good. It was just too clinical to evoke any emotion in me (regarding the story, that is). Shreve can clearly write, but maybe not these kinds of stories.

RELEASE NOTES:

Will be left somewhere on Hiihtäjäntie, don't yet know precisely where. Possibly some bus stop.