Anita Shreve - I know she's a bestseller 'n' all but I just don't get it.

[nkf]

Just raed a couple - ran out of books on holiday and had to borrow. And what's the point of them? The research sticks out a mile and the storylines just seemed to peter out.

[laptopqueen]

She is so hit and miss.

I have read 'Pilot's wife' and 'Light on snow' which I loved.

However just read the newest one 'body surfing' which was quite boring.

Also 'wedding in december' which was just ok.

[HaventSleptForAYear]

Yep. Boring and really slow.

[beansontoast]

mmmmn..i just read ligt on snow...because it was on the bookshelves in the house i was staying at.

it was a nice easy read, for a v tired almost brain dead with fatigue mother of two...def easy to pick up, with simple sentences to digest between kiddy requests of ''watch me.....mum......watch me....muuuum!''

but beyond that...i doubt i would recommend that anyone read it.little of teh content really moved me.

[Romy7]

blandsville with little happening that you couldn't predict from the first chapter...

[TwoIfBySea]

Sea Glass was okay. She is like that other American author, Jodie Picolt (sp?) in that it seems to be writing by numbers.

[Romy7]

Jodi Picoult still manages to surprise me sometimes though - you know there is going to be a twist of some sort, but you don't always get it right - at least, i don't!

[suiledonn]

I really Like Anita Shreve although I admit some of her books are a lot better than others. Eden Close and Strange Fits of Passion are my favourites and I really like Light on Snow. I think she is a much better writer than Jodie Picoult, never even finished one of hers.

[Scarletibis]

I've read Wedding in December - it was okay, some good bits, but could have been better. All the characters seemed rather samey and it lacked a certain bite.

Jodi Picoult on the other hand is truely dreadful!

[chapstickchick]

i love jodi piccoult!!!

i read anita shreves the pilots wife and that was edgy

[BeckyBendyLegs]

I never got Anita Shreve or Jodi P. either but then I get shot down for saying that I thought Sebastian Falks Birdsong was rubbish and I really, really hated the da vinci code with a passion.

[BreeVanderCampLGJ]

I read JP once, it left me feeling soiled.

I read the Pilots Wife, it had potential, but she threw it away with a very lazy ending.

So if I was really stuck, it would be AS but only after I had read the Sun, Mirror, and the Daily Wail.

[chapstickchick]

i still love jp books

[ScottishMummy]

hated JPicoult her rambling gloopy narratives and moralising tone.will never get that time back

[BreeVanderCampLGJ]

SM

I felt like that about Happy Feet, two hours of my life, I will never get back.

The bitter irony is........I came home, opened the freezer and 2lb of frozen sauasage meat launched itself out of the freezer and broke my toe. Happy Feet my arse.

[BreeVanderCampLGJ]

SM

I felt like that about Happy Feet, two hours of my life, I will never get back.

The bitter irony is........I came home, opened the freezer and 2lb of frozen sauasage meat launched itself out of the freezer and broke my toe. Happy Feet my arse.

[BreeVanderCampLGJ]

I only broke the one toe.

[BeckyBendyLegs]

It's all personal taste. A friend of mine who is English Language education coordinator for somewhere large raved about the Da Vinci Code and that was why I read it in the first place thinking 'well if she likes it it must be good'. She'd also recommended Birdsong and another book I totally hated called the glass book of the dreameaters or the dream book of the glasseaters or something like that.

I laughed at the frozen sausages meets feet!

[ScottishMummy]

falling sausage, broken metatarsal, pulp trashy book.couldn't make it up

[BeckyBendyLegs]

And there's the beginning of a great plot for the next bestseller...

[nkf]

Glad others feel the same. And I couldn't read the Da Vinci code either. Thought I was alone on that one too.

[Badgermoose]

Couldn't agree more about Anita Shreve. Dull, dull, dull, badly written, unengaging, dull, dull, boring and dull. To be fair I didn't manage to finish either of the two I started so maybe there was an amazing twist at the end which will be forever lost to me that would have roused me from the stupor I fell into whilst reading them.
I did at least finish the da Vinci code, really really rubish but at least had a plot of sorts and such bad writing it made me laugh whereas AS just irritatingly dull

[GorgonsGin]

I detest Anita Shrieve's books and couldn't understand her appeal. Pilot's Wife does seem like she writes by numbers. The London bits were set where I live and I thought "You've just researched this on the web and by following the A-Z. You have never been here!". Clunky and formulaic and utterly predictable.

There are so many (american, women IMHO) writers that seem to have gone to the same creative writing class and have been taught to write according to a check list so they wound the same - i.e insert twist here, use metaphor here. Anita Shrieve, Jodi Picault and whoever wrote the Memory Keeper's Daughter, which was better in plot, but the same old style.

[Ceolas]

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get into any of her books. Tried a few then figured life's too short...