Where or When | 
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Product Description
What would you do if out of the blue, you received a letter from your first love? Siān Richards sees no reason why she can't write back to Charles Callahan. After all, it's been thirty years and they are both married with families. But when they decide to meet again, an innocent correspondence becomes a dangerous intimacy. Swept up in the past and consumed by an obsessive love, Charles and Siān risk everything to be together. A heart-wrenching, suspenseful story with an unforgettable conclusion, Where or When is also a 'thoughtful, beautifully written contemporary romance' (The Washington Post).
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Customer Reviews:
• Where Or When 23 May, 2008
This was the first book of anita shreve i read and still is my favorite. The pilots wife was excellent. but this one really keep me reading til I finished it, could not put it down. She puts such twists in her stories. About the time you think you you know the way it will end, she blindsides you and you can't put down the book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A29SWKZISBKMFL
• Boring At Best 15 July, 2008
I kept waiting for this one to get better. Lo and behold, it only gets worse. I was so disappointed by the end of the book, that I had to hurry and start a new novel just to get this one out of my mind. Don't waist your time.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1CF0CSU600AQX
• Didn't Like It 12 April, 2008
I have to admit, I had high hopes for this book. However, the characters aren't likable and it's hard to believe that a one-week infatuation during summer camp when the characters were 13-14 would be so haunting later in life.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A15NDN1UXEOAM0
• Overwrought And Underdeveloped 26 February, 2008
Where or When aka Where or When Will This Ever End? A painful read made more painful by the ending.
While I found the initial correspondence between the doomed lovers engaging, what follows is a whirlwind lustfest that has little based on actual love and respect and more based on self-indulgence and obsession.
What I found most interesting was that the more Shreve let us into Charles' head, the more I disliked him. In a sane world, Sian would have been completely turned off by his desperate neediness. It's nice to be wanted but Shreve never convinces the reader that Sian is more than an object of lost and regained youth to Charles. Further, their love scenes were almost grotesque because I could not see Charles as having any motivation other than lust...not even a mature desire. The teenage encounter 31 years before has more sweetness and taste than anything that takes place between the older versions. If it weren't for the evidence of his three children, one would think he had never had sex before. Perhaps Shreve's message is that any sex without Sian didn't count, but c'mon. Our experiences are what makes us who we are and Charles wouldn't be the older Charles without the experiences of the younger Charles - other women and all.
While Shreve manages to paint the background of the characters' lives adequately, she fails to convince the reader that they are living in misery. Or that they had even given each other a second thought in the many intervening years. Or that they would have had the same "connection" if they had spent the last 31 years together. One suspects that they were both looking for a way out and would have taken anyone who came along. Even though Charles and Sian try to prove they were only meant for each other by repeating various versions of "this never happened before", these zombies', I mean characters', dissatisfied and unfulfilled lives can not be traced back to a one week affair between 14 year olds, no matter how much they want to believe it.
The ending is completely frustrating. Sinners punished! Lives ruined! Happiness averted! Shreve thought to make a weak story more powerful with a death (almost two!), yet she only manages to make her characters seem even more stupid and selfish. An abrupt end based on a theme that Shreve lamely attempts to weave through this story and reintroduce at the last minute.
This is not a book I would recommend to friend or enemy.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AAEHBXK48CYT0
• Emotionally Moving 25 May, 2008
As with most of Anita Shreve's books, the reader feels the emotions and longings of the characters. I love the story line of many of her books and the ability she has to evoke strong emotions with her writing style. Even though the ending of this novel may disappoint readers, it was the perfect ending to a wonderful read. One of her best, however, "The Last Time They Met" is my all time favorite.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AVDXPYN4QIS5C
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