Testimony by Anita Shreve is next up on our Bestsellers List reading challenge.  For a summary of Testimony, please check out its introductory post.

This post does not contain spoilers.

 

Testimony* by Anita Shreve

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

General Thoughts

I had high hopes for Testimony. Its genre – mystery/suspense – is one that I usually enjoy reading. But there was very little of either mystery or suspense in this novel. The biggest question was what ultimately happened to Silas, because it was obvious that he was the most vulnerable character in this story. But by the time the big reveal came along, I had really ceased to care. The story dragged on too long and centered too much on the headmaster’s affair and not enough on the students caught on the pivotal sex tape.

Misleading Title

The title, Testimony, led me to believe there would be a legal trial, but instead the word referred to recollections of the events given to an outside interviewer by each of the characters. We never meet this outside interviewer; we only hear vague references to the initial letter this person sent to each character.

The headmaster’s chapters were the longest, with the most details, and yet his story was not told to the interviewer, but instead told as he wrote his own “memoir.” None of this worked from me – it felt too much like a writing device rather than the way a real story would flow.

Female Provocateur

As a female author, I expected Shreve to develop multi-dimensional female characters, but the few females in this book were hardly that. I was especially disappointed in Shreve’s development of Sienna, the 14-year-old female student involved in the sex tape. She gave us just enough “testimony” to dislike the girl and feel sympathy for the male students who were obviously ensnared, but no insight into the reasons behind the girl’s actions, family life, or childhood.

As an introduction to Anita Shreve, Testimony left me with no desire to read any of her other novels. I can only assume it made the New York Times Bestseller list based upon Shreve’s loyal readers and the popularity of previous novels.

If you have an Anita Shreve novel that you can recommend, please let me know.  Surely as a bestselling author, she has written better novels than Testimony.

 

Related posts:

  1. Book-beginnings, a discussion of the first line of the novel
  2. Karen’s review from a reader’s perspective
  3. Roberta’s review from a writer’s perspective

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What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog. Links in the list go to the landing page from this blog where the discussion starts. However, this is an open-ended challenge so feel free to jump in with any of the books at any time.

The next book is number 53. Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire (2011) – Discussion begins August 20, 2018
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