Testimony: A Novel |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.
Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in TESTIMONY a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellinglyexplores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
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Customer Reviews:
• A Page Turner
08 March, 2010
I always enjoy reading Anita Shreve's novels, and this book is no exception. The scandal that touches the lives of each character in the story alters the course of their lives dramatically. It is reminder that the consequences that come from recklessness can far-reaching and life changing.
Though this book was undoubtedly written for an adult audience, it would be a powerful cautionary tale for young adults (late teens).
- Amazon Customer Review
• Novel
02 March, 2010
I have read many Anita Shreve books and have liked
some of her other books a bit better than this one.
It is a good read, nevertheless and well written.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Trisha's Book Blog Review
10 January, 2010
Let me start off by saying that I could not believe how many characters were in this book. I started the book and when I seen how many characters there were I ended up keeping a pen and paper by me and wrote down each person and how they related to another person in the story. If I wouldn't have done that I think the book would have been hard for me to understand and remember who was who.
After saying that I really liked this book. The word that comes to my mind when I think about this book is intense. The story is just so real. Thinks like this happen all of the time and it really makes you think.
Even though Silas was one of the boys in the tape I really feel like he had so much going on and that in a split second he made a really bad choice that unfortunately changed his life and many others.
As for Silas' girlfriend Noelle, I really felt for her. She was in love and was looking into the future and seeing all that was going to be and in a few minutes everything changed.
And Rob's mom Ellen, I can see myself as her for a second. I have two boys of my own and seeing myself getting a call like she did really just opens your eyes and makes you think about things. The way she tells the story makes it seem like it really is happening to you. She puts you in her shoes. Like I said, the story is just so intense.
There are quit a few people in the story but these three I really connected to and related with in the story and wanted to write them in my review. But this book was amazing! I would recommend it to everyone!
- Amazon Customer Review
• Powerful And Thought Provoking
22 January, 2010
"Testimony" is a compelling story of a sex scandal at Avery Academy, a small private school in Vermont. Shreve opens up the majestic gates that loom before Avery separating (or possibly protecting) its students from the rest of world and exposes a world of raw emotion, sins, repression, corruption, greed, sex, desperation, anger, and even love. The scandal soon becomes a tragedy, and its consequences reach almost every character in the book. The topics addressed from the politics of sex, the nature of greed, alienation in marriage, needs versus wants, for example, are all done so with a smart, fair, and insightful voice.
The real brilliance of the book is the way the author tells the story from many points of view, about 20. In so doing, she peels off layer and layer of the story, and gives another aspect, another perspective to consider. The writing is gripping, and the story fascinating. But the real genius is how Ms. Shreve takes this story poses questions, always and keeping the reader thinking and questioning the morality, innocence, and guilt of the characters, and possibly even of him or herself. A powerful read.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Faulkner Would Be Proud (maybe)
13 February, 2010
Anita Shreve commented in an interview that her novel TESTIMONY was written after she reread William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (which is actually mentioned in TESTIMONY--a character writes an essay on Faulkner). The novel is clearly influenced by Faulkner's format: over a dozen characters narrate brief chapters in tandem, keeping the action flowing quickly while providing a diversity of view and perspective. The only difference is that some of Shreve's chapters are in the third person instead of the first.
TESTIMONY, however, is far more accessible than Faulkner's dense prose. The story is simplistic but human, highly addictive in its controversial nature: a group of older boys at a prep school in Vermont shed their inhibitions one night, raging with alcohol and hormones. Each of them is taped having sex with a fourteen-year-old freshmen girl--because they're all eighteen or above, they're considered adults and therefore criminals. Lives are ruined. Lies are told. Coverups are attempted. Bitterness, adultery and disquieting revelations abound. The freshmen girl may not be as innocent as you'd think, and the adults handling the situation are far more flawed than they'd like to admit. Everything is rendered in gorgeous emotional detail.
I couldn't stop reading. You probably won't be able to, either.
- Amazon Customer Review
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