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Testimony (Hardcover)

by Anita Shreve (Author)
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
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Testimony + Strange Fits of Passion + Resistance
Price For All Three: £21.86

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st. Edition edition (2 Oct 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0316730726
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316730723
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 21,477 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #8 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Shreve, Anita

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Product Description

Review

'Anita Shreve is back on cracking form with TESTIMONY. What is so fresh and resonant about this novel is the clever way in which the author unpacks the events with a series of separate narratives. Each voice contributes an additional layer of impasto to the picture; each layer, in turn, has to be mined carefully for its information and character and situation. Poised and absolutely steady-handed, this is a gripping piece of deconstruction' --Elizabeth Buchan, Sunday Times


Review

'Anita Shreve is a phenomenon. As ever - and even though the novel is written from different points of view - the power of Shreve's writing lies in it relentless passivity. The prose is undemonstrative, yet insidiously accomplished. For some, it may be reassuring that an author who can command a readership as large as Shreve's should choose to write a novel of this sort. On the surface, it is a brave, uncompromising choice for someone occasionally criticised as being a "woman's writer". Yet I think that Testimony goes further than this. It is so unforgiving of a panoply of human frailty as to be misanthropic'
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good... but not outstanding, 17 Oct 2008
I am quite a fan of Anita Shreve and I liked the idea of approaching the particular incident which the story focuses on from all sorts of different viewpoints. However, I think as the plot unfolds, too many already familiar views get churned out over and over again. We've already understood that Sienna is less than innocent, we know about Mike's feelings etc. The other thing I wasn't so keen on is a certain laziness in the explanation of it all - nobody has really got an insight or a particular angle. And one doesn't really want to follow the author who seems to blame the poor mother for ruining her eighteen-year old son's life by having an affair. So all in all I'd say whilst it's a decent enough read, it left me somewhat disappointed.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but in a subtle way, 31 Oct 2008
By Brida "izumi" (Worcs) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
This is the first novel by Shreve that I have read. Perhaps because I came to it with no expectations in regard to her writing style, I enjoyed it more than the previous reviewer to me. However, I can also see their point.

TESTIMONY is the story of a sex tape scandal at a boarding school in a relatively small community in Vermont. The novel tells of how this tape and the contents on it has repercussions, not just for those who featured in it, but also for others. Shreve splits the narrative between a few different characters who became involved in the event and its aftermath, offering the reader different viewpionts on the same event. And in some ways, this works well. But there are a few letdowns. As the other reviewer stated, Shreve tends to repeat various views again and again, rather than developing them further. However, I think the fact that you are never really given a 'proper' reason for the tape, actually adds something to what is behind this novel - that one stupid moment in a person's life can change the path they are to take and have consequences which they would never have imagined.

TESTIMONY is not the sort of book which grips you from the first page and keeps you in its thrall - I must admit that I had to persevere with it as it is not a page turner in the sense that you are on the edge of your seat, desperately wanting to know what will happen next. This book, although quite good, is more subtle than that.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, 27 Jan 2009
I am normally a big fan of Anita Shreve's work, but found this book rather disappointing. Although the writing itself is as usual, excellent, at over half way through, I still didn't feel I liked any of the characters enough to actually care what happened to them. It all made for rather a depressing read.

I really hate to write a 'negative' review of Shreve's work, but in this instance I am struggling to think of nice things to say about it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A difficult subject handled with skill
A sex scandal in a boarding school is perhaps nothing new for fiction, but it's still a difficult subject to place at the centre of a book; especially when it also tries to... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Jl Adcock

2.0 out of 5 stars Testimony - I do solemnly swear that this book is below average
I found this book abandoned on the train and saved it from the rubbish collector. Blank pages had been torn out for notepaper and that lack of respect should have warned me what... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Build another bookcase

2.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately a disappointment
I was very excited to see that Anita Shreve had a new book out - I have all her previous books and have read most of them several times. Read more
Published 4 months ago by T. Ljubic-Brown

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful
I began Testimony expecting to be immediately drawn in but found the book more of a slow burn, however as the story unfolded I realised I was gripped and this had happened... Read more
Published 9 months ago by A. B. Taylor

3.0 out of 5 stars Forced
This latest Anita Shreve novel seems to be attempting to repeat the recipe used for Strange Fits of Passion but it fails to dig deep enough. Read more
Published 11 months ago by RH

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