So...it's probably quite obvious that I'm back at work. I was averaging a book a week and now, three weeks have passed with no new reviews. A few people have even contacted me (which I loved) about what I was reading now. Sorry folks, the whole having to get up early to teach the children how to read is interrupting my own leisurely reading time. I'm hoping once the haze of the beginning lifts, I'll be able to get back into a better reading routing. For now, once or twice a month is probably our max. It saddens me, too.Without further ado...The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve was given to me in passing. A friend of mine was cleaning out her books and stumbled upon this. Because she was moving, she needed a place for the books to go and allowed me the chance to rummage through the selection. (Don't we love a friend like this!). I picked up The Pilot's Wife and thumbed through the pages, contemplating on whether or not I wanted to read a book that might be too close to home for me, after all, I am a pilot's wife. I decided to take a chance. I'm glad I did.Kathryn Lyons fumbles in the dark when a late night knock comes at her door. (I'm not giving anything away here, this is on page one) There is no other way to interpret the stranger on the front porch. Her husband, Jack Lyons, has been killed in a plane accident. Immediately, she is sucked into a tornado of events. How will she cope? How will she tell her daughter? This opening scene is heart-wrechnig, especially if you are parent. You travel with Kathryn on this journey of loss, hoping that behind each turn there is some good news to follow.As Kathryn, her daughter Mattie, and her grandmother Julia sift through the wreckage of their lives and deflect the horrible stories the media perpetrates during this difficult time, Kathryn begins to wonder if she ever knew Jack at all. Her daughter, a teenager handling the upset in her life the way most teenagers do - with deference and anger and grace depending on which day you catch her - pops off to her mom saying, "How well does anyone every really know anyone else, anyway?". Kathryn assures her daughter and herself that she knew Jack, she knew her husband, but as the novel unfolds, we find that is not true; her daughter's wisdom far beyond her own.Kathryn Lyons is a character you follow closely as you read. I think this is because you want so much for her, you want just one page, one moment, to have good news; for her to wake up from this nightmare her life has become. Anita Shreve will tease you a bit, but in the end sometimes life is just not fair.Anita Shreve writes expertly. I felt every emotion, good and bad. Every betrayal leaped off the page into my soul. It is such a well-written novel that I believe anyone would enjoy the reading. It is a women's fiction piece to me and I say this because it's not so literary one has to think all the way through, The Pilot's Wife is a novel with staying power. It was made into a movie in 2002, but didn't boast big name actors. I've not seen the film, and I probably won't; the story in the book was so strong I don't need a visible representation of this work.The Pilot's Wife was selected for the Oprah Book Club and became an international best-seller.Anita Shreve is an author I will read again. She's written several books, many of them best-sellers. She says "She loves the novel form and writes only in that genre...The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."This is a book I would recommend to anyone looking to read a solid story. There is just enough tenderness and love within the mystery and suspense to pull a reader forward, the book is just really good. It's that simple.For more about Anita Shreve visit her website at http://www.anitashreve.com
The Time Travelers Wife, Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, and now the Pilot's Wife. Unintentionally my small collection on Goodreads has a very common theme! Out of the three recently read- The Pilot's Wife is certainly my favorite. I was visiting my parents last weekend and picked this off of the top of a stack in their laundry room. I don't usually commit to a book without knowing more about it or hearing a recommendation but I'm really glad that I did! I think its the most well written and you immediately get sucked into the characters and the story. Unlike the Silent Wife, this was a page turner for me. I read it in 3 or 4 nights. This book had twists and turns but they didn't feel cheap like they may have in Gone Girl. (Gone Girl felt kind of like a Hollywood best seller to me- good and entertaining and well written for sure with some great disturbing twists to throw you off but not something that would really stick with you) The major theme- in my opinion, was the ability to create your own reality. In this way it was very similar to the Silent Wife. Perhaps Pilots wife is also about things not being as they seem- but the way that each chapter started with a snapshot of life as it was with Jack, meant that there was reality and there was the life that Kathryn wanted to live and she ignored certain details and moments between them to carry this vision out and mold her life to look as she wanted it to. And though she realizes that she was wrong all along, she also continues to do it when she decides at the end that Jack cried out for Mattie as his plane went down. Something she would never know for sure but that would help her cope and make sense of the life they had together.Its like creating a photo album. You throw out the photos that aren't so good or aren't of a particularly good memory but keep the great ones. All of a sudden over time you forget the memories that aren't so good and your reality becomes what you see in the pictures. Unlike Silent Wife, I finished the book feeling tremendous hope for Kathryn. It was a depressing book to say the least but so beautifully written, with fantastic imagery and underlying tones of hope. I actually finished it feeling satisfied and content and immediately recommended it to a friend.
What do You think about The Pilot's Wife (1999)?
I don't understand what all the hype was about with this book. I think Shreve's writing is pretty good - no complaints there - but the pace of this book is all over the place. It's very slow to start, to the point where I wanted to just give up on it, and then the last 2-3 chapters rush to wrap eeverything up into a neat package. The plot was pretty good, a bit "Lifetime movie" for my tastes, but decent enough. If the pace had been a bit more consistent, I probably would have given this 3 stars. I wouldn't read it again, but I know a lot of people really loved this one, so maybe I just didn't 'get it'.
—Nicole
I am being a bit generous. Would give this two and a half stars if there were such a thing. At times I enjoyed reading it and wanted to get to the end quickly. At other times I just wanted to get to the end. Well written sentences, and then she writes "It was late, and Kathryn had no clue what time it was." And?Being predictable or not realistic does not always make a bad book, as long as characters don't do things that make you go whaaa? so I may read another of her books. I pulled this off the shelf after seeing that it had been filmed and was interested in seeing that. Went to the shelf and there it was.
—Linda Rowland
The Pilot's Wife in a nutshell: Jack Lyons, a commercial pilot, is flying a plane when it explodes. The book follows the grieving process of his widow, as she tries to figure out what happened in that plane. The overriding question in the book is "How well can we ever really know someone else?"There wasn't anything really wrong with the book, it was just overly gray for my taste. I don't think the sun shines in the entire book. It was solidly written though, and it did keep me turning pages. I did have a vague idea where the whole thing was going from about a third of the way through. I wasn't exactly right, but I was close.This really was not my kind of book. I have a feeling it would appeal to fans of Nicholas Sparks. In fact, my mom is a huge fan of his and I sent her this book to read today.
—JG (The Introverted Reader)
