While wife is planning daughter?s wedding, husband is planning a renewal of vows for their anniversary

I've read two Shreve novels now and I think what I've learned from her is this: Before agreeing to marry a man, one should ask him if he's actually deeply in love with someone else. If he's honest he may reveal that he's just marrying you because he thinks it'll never work out with another woman. As Shreve illustrates so well in her novels, it sucks to find out ten or twenty years into a marriage that you were actually the runner-up.

I'm pretty tired of books about domestic funk. Why do I keep reading them? Do I think I'm going to find one that isn't brimming with middle class malaise? (I think I stole the phrase "middle class malaise" from the NYT review of A Wedding.)

Still, I'm not gonna lie, I liked this book. I'll probably read another just like it next week. It's like I think if I read enough books about unhappy marriages I'll be able to prevent myself from entering one. ( )

3/27/2007: This book was middle-of-the-road Anita Shreve for me. It was much better than The Pilot's Wife but not quite as good as The Weight of Water or Strange Fits of Passion. I was at times irritated with the parallel story line and found myself just kind of skimming through it to get back to the "real" story. Although, at the end, I did see it as Agnes's way of processing her "secret life". She made the characters choose the same path she did at the end which I thought was typical of her. She stated all along that she was fine with her arrangement and her story ending showed that as well. I do wish there would have been more time spent on Harrison and Nora. I have to say that I felt Harrison was a better man than he turned out to be and I'm a little disappointed in him! It scares me to think that someone who seemed so committed to something could throw it all away on a whim. My 10-year class reunion is coming up this July and this book has made me a little scared...I'll have to keep my husband close by! :) ( )

can't love it, when it has infidelity, but a great portral of life and relationships. Why the author insists on throwing in a "big" word every chapter is beyond me and I have a pretty good vocabulary. It distracted at times. loved the story within the story about the Halifax disaster. ( )

After giving Anita Shreve a third try I think it's time to concede that she is not the author for me. This type of book simply does not interest me. I think it's a lack of interest in mental anguish that I often feel is self-induced. It's hard for me to want to stay in a character's head for so long when almost everything the character does annoys me. ( )