by Anita Shreve
I feel about Anita Shreve the same way I do about Jody Picoult. I want to like her books because they\’re so terribly popular. But after reading two or three, I just can\’t pick another one up. The reading experience is just so- dull. Sea Glass is a novel about a newly married couple in an old beach house on the New England Coast, and several of their friends and acquaintances. It switches viewpoints often. It\’s set in the 1920\’s, during the stock market crash and a strike among local mill workers. At first these events seem far from the beach house\’s quiet interior and its occupants, but soon it is right in their living room. The novel explores how all the characters are affected and struggle together with change. I could not come to know or care about any of them. Even with the pathetic love story included. I wanted the book to be beautiful, to glow like sea glass does under water with the light shining on it. But unfortunately, it\’s as dull as the pieces still lying undiscovered on the beach, barely discernible from their neighboring stones. Disappointing.
Rating: 2/5 …….. 376 pages, 2002