Good read with depth. Also liked the story within the story. ( )

This was an okay book for me. I have enjoyed some of her other books more. ( )

This book was a real treat because I love Shreve's expert characterizations. Several friends from a private high school reconnect more than two decades later for the marriage of two of their own. It's a tragic love story, but also one of hope. Bill leaves his wife and children to marry his high school sweetheart, Bridget, who is suffering from terminal breast cancer. The story focuses a bit on each of the characters, including Nora, who has turned her home into the inn at which the wedding will be held. Nora's husband recently died, but romantic feelings arise between her and Harrison, the now-married best friend of her high school boyfriend, whose mysterious death at the academy is a major plotline. However, the best part of A Wedding in December is the book being written by Nora's old roommate, Agnes. We actually get to read portions of the book and get involved in the lives of another set of equally intriguing characters. The book takes place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the time of the 1917 explosion in the city's harbor. I'd never heard about the Halifax explosion before reading this book, and I did some research afterward. It was very interesting and could have been a stand-alone book. Shreve also is very good at weaving historical details into her novels. ( )

http://tinyurl.com/ppgdlk

This publisher's marketing department is grasping at straws. From the back cover: "The reader may be surprised at how quickly the pages turn." Um, that's certainly a phrase that can be construed in multiple ways, negatively being one of them.

But that's Shreve for you. Her novels are designed to move along, to not incur deep thoughts, and to leave you wondering if you just read chicklit or something more erudite. Because if you look for subtext, it is there, it's just "lighter" subtext than what you would expect in literature.

For instance, the story within a story is written to suggest the power of changing the tale you are writing in whatever way you choose, while the novel's narrative hints at the possibilities of doing this in real life. It's a good setting for a tale of a December wedding (gawd, who let that title through, could it be more boring?) between high-school sweethearts who have lived full lives and then re-met each other at a reunion, plus how all their high-school friends have lived or wish to live their lives. But her writing is just too simplistic to firmly frame the subtext.

I wish Shreve would try her hand at a different genre. Wouldn't it be fascinating to see how she'd handle, say, YA or sci-fi? ( )

A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve reunites seven prep school friends, 27 years after graduation, to celebrate the midlife marriage of high school sweethearts who had separated, married, had children, divorced, and reunited. Midlife assessments of life choices, marital and otherwise, are highlighted by the reunion, yet also colored by awareness of the unpredictable – 9/11, breast cancer, an autistic child. All share memories of the friend that died accidentally, after a drunken party they all attended, shortly before graduation. ( )