- Mass Market Paperback: 267 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books (Sep 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345436121
- ISBN-13: 978-0345436122
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.4 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 718,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Random Hearts
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Product Description
The New York Time Book Review
'Sensitive, ironic, very readable.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Booklist
'Emotionally Charged'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Would they have ever met, if.....?
This is the story of Edward Davis and Viven Simpson, the surviving spouses of a couple who are killed in a airplane crash on the way to sun, sand, and adultery. He's a congressional assistant from Iowa. She's a dedicated housewife from Vermont. Both were happily married, or so they thought.
When they meet for the first time in the Medical Examiner's office, identifying their deceased spouses' bodies, both are shocked by their betrayal. Their friends and families don't understand how they feel. Homicide Detective McCarthy tells them to get on with their lives. But Edward and Vivien need to know how the affair could have happened. They need to realize the truth about their spouses. And they need to understand themselves.
They come together realizing that only they understand their own emotions, and offer each other the support that they can't expect from their families and friends, who saw them as halves of dedicated couples. His job is on the line. She has a child. But they each need a fresh start.
They each have a matching key belonging to their dead spouses. What do these keys unlock-physically and metaphysically? This is the question that occupies Edward and Vivien throughout the book, and while searching for the answer they become a solidly locked new entity.
Readers may wish that Edward and Vivien would confide the truth to their unsupportive families and friends, especially Edward, who is menaced by his in-laws. It's short and fast-paced, so you get to the end quickly wishing there were more. But it's an exciting read, that keeps you turning the pages all the way through.
Ironically, I read this book just as the World Trade Center buildings came crashing to the ground as the result of airplane crashes. I felt much of my own sense of personal security disappear just as Edward's and Vivien's do. The characters both feel during their psychological journey that they can't trust the people closest to them not to cause them pain. Just as we must all implement new security procedures to protect ourselves, so must Edward and Vivien re-evaluate their relationships with their families and friends-and each other. Can we-and they-ever again feel truly safe? The investigating officer tells them to go on with their lives, just as we have been asked to. But will things ever be the same again? And can we, the survivors of the attacks, come together in a new awareness of ourselves, as do Edward and Vivien? It remains to be seen if the recent tragedies will bring together more random hearts.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I just loved this book although it was a freebie. After starting reading the story I had to go to the end of the book to see what is going to happen. As I could not stand the tension of not knowing what would happen to the cheated partners. The happy ending is also a distinct bonus.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
20 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
gordon's opinion of a sleeper
29 Jan 2005
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Warren Adler started with a simple plot of an unfaithful husband and an another man's unfaithful wife. Simple start that starts slowly but draws you in so deep that you're trying to guide the remaining two characters- partly to make sure that they fall in love, and quickly. The two guilty parties have already been signed to the deep, so we're just pulling for the survivors as if they were destined to meet and fall in love and the basic plot and the other two characters had to be inserted and wraps around them for that effect. Read the book - forget the movie. Incidentially I've read the book 7 times - it's that good and different. Incidentially I'm a much older kid.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Thank goodness I didn't have to pay for this!
18 Jan 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Great plot starting out. It really sounded like it had promise, which I am sure is why a friend bought it for me. Two people running away from their marriages die in a plane crash. How would the surviving spouses react to their affair? I like romance and all. But, I could barely finish it. What a waste!
How many ways can someone find to say "I love you" within 5 pages??? This was so trite, with so little character developement I cannot even recall the characters' names. But then why would I even want to do so? There are very few books that I have read that I could not find something in them to like. This was one.
How many ways can someone find to say "I love you" within 5 pages??? This was so trite, with so little character developement I cannot even recall the characters' names. But then why would I even want to do so? There are very few books that I have read that I could not find something in them to like. This was one.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A truly awful book
19 Feb 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This was a true waste of time. The characters had no redeeming values. The self absorbtion and total devaluation of the child were abhorant. I read it all thinking it would redeem it's self in the end but it only got worse. One of only a handful of books that I wish I'd never read. The Pilots Wife is a wonderful book dealing with a simular situation and betrayal.
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