Testimony by Anita Shreve Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.00 You Save: $23.99 (92%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Testimony
Book Review: Different Points of View result in Satisfying Read
Summary: 4 Stars
A better book than Shreve's last one (Body Surfing), which I did not like. "Testimony" is about a New England private boarding school rocked by scandal when a sex video surfaces, clearly showing three male students (seniors) engaged in acts with a freshman girl. The chapters alternate voices - we get to hear from the headmaster, the parents, the young girl, the students themselves - even minor characters get a chapter or two. The `testimony' is everyone's recollections of events - most looking back on the incident, but a couple in the present tense voices of the characters' actually living through the consequences of the event. Shreve does have a good grasp on the issues, involving drunkenness on campuses, parental ferocity, and young minds dealing with their own stupid decisions. Lives are changed and the book is not a happy one with a pat answer, and that's a good thing.Book Review: Different Than Her Normal
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read quite a few Anita Shreve books and have loved them. This one is as good as the other ones - the layout is different but she continues with a book that keeps you reading to get to the end. I would recommend this book to others!!Book Review: Disappointed
Summary: 3 Stars
Let me begin by saying Anita Shreve is one of my favorite authors and that I buy any new book she releases without question. I might be rethinking that going forward. Testimony was jumbled and had no real conclusion. It had too many characters and all but one or two were interesting. It took me forever to read the book and I actually found myself not really caring how it ended, I just wanted it to end. Very few author's can pull off multiple voices in a book and unfortunately Ms. Shreve isn't one of them that does it well.
If you've never read Anita Shreve this is not the book to begin with. I would suggest Sea Glass, The Pilot's Wife and Fortune's Rock.
Book Review: Disappointment for me
Summary: 2 Stars
This was a disappointment for me as one who has enjoyed Anita Shreve in the past, especially Fortune's Rocks. This book could have been subtitled, "Everything that could possibly go wrong will go wrong." Are there any redeeming qualities in anyone here? I felt the chapters devoted solely to odd/ancillary characters was contrived and I wished for more of an interwoven story line here. I could make no sense of any of it and I suppose this was the intent of the author, but I did not like it.Book Review: Disjointed and Unsettling, As It Is No Doubt Meant to Be
Summary: 4 Stars
Testimony, by Anita Shreve. is the story of a scandal at a New England preparatory school and is told in the voices of the many people involved in the tragedy. The story, loosely, is about a video tape which is found depicting three older male students raping a much younger student, however as the narrative unfolds, it is clear it is so much more than that.
At first it was a little hard to get into the story as each chapter is told from the viewpoint of a different person, which makes it somewhat jerky at times. There are differences in tense- including one character who tells the story in second person present tense, which is VERY difficult to read. Nevertheless, as I got into the book, the disparate pieces knitted together to form a cohesive whole. Clearly the author meant for the book to be unsettling and to not be an easy read. At that she definitely succeeded. This will probably be one of those books I think about for a long time, and it makes me want to read more by her.