Book 24

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Type: Fiction

My rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Why I chose it: The only other book by this author that I have read was The Pilot's Wife, which I thought was just OK but good enough that I vowed to read something else by her. This is her latest novel and I thought it sounded pretty interesting -- a sex scandal at a private school in Vermont.

What I liked about it: I thought I would like the storytelling from the perspectives of multiple characters but the use of this technique in this book made the characters hard to follow. At the very end, I unsuccessfully tried to flip back through the book to even determine the significance of one of the characters. The novel is also told from multiple narratives - in the first, second and third person - which also made it a bit choppy for me. The story was fairly well told and seeing the tragic events transpire from multiple points of view (just too many points of view) was interesting. The novel explored the characters dealing with the consequences of their actions and forced them to examine the "what ifs" as in "what if" he didn't do this or "what if" she didn't do that. In the end, for me I really want to like this book but, like The Pilot's Wife, I thought it was just OK.