The Last Time They Met (2025)

Fuck this book.

First of all, it's broken into three sections- the characters at 52, 28 and 17. It goes backwards, which might work in some stories, but it's utterly annoying here. You end up not knowing the characters at all. Plus, it was like a wanna be Out of Africa. I'm so annoyed with this book. Anita Shrew I mean Shreve is all about the depressing love stories, but this was ridiculous. I liked the other one about this character much better and THAT one wasn't even that good. Jesus.

"Such extraordinary emotions in the space of paragraphs." - Thoughts on The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve

I hate you, Anita Shreve.

I hate you for writing The Last Time They Met. For making me fall in love and breaking my heart, all at once, on the same (last) page. I hate how you pretty much destroyed my hope in finding love as perfect and enduring and dangerous as that of Linda and Thomas. I will now probably end up an old maid with delusions of love so grand, there is no possibility whatsoever that I will find it. All thanks to you.

I hate you for creating a character like Thomas: a man who has his faults, but who loves with such a passion that all faults are forgotten. You just made me go against my personal standard of not falling for men who smoke, all for someone who unfortunately exists only on paper and in your words.

Thomas, oh Thomas. Who aged so beautifully backwards, whose poetry I was never able to read (yes, women who are reading this, this lovely character writes poetry!) but for which I am willing to bet a limb on is beautiful prose. Thomas, whose love never waned from boyhood to manhood to old age, despite all the sad in-betweens and heart-wrenching subplots to the story. I caught myself asking - nay, praying - if the good Lord will permit him to come alive, so that I may look for him, find him and fall in love with him, in the hopes that he will love me in return. But then I realized this cannot be - nay, this shouldn't be - because I am no Linda: I am not the woman he was meant to be with.

And Linda, whom I envied with such conviction because she was capable of love so enduring that it survived personal tragedies, subsequent relationships, distance and time. Linda, compared over and over to Magdalene - a fallen woman. And yet despite that she had the luck of the draw; she, whose soulmate was a man equally, if not more, madly in love with her as she is with him.

I hate you for writing The Last Time They Met the way it's written: backwards, like reading a book from the last page forward. And yet, it never read like a flashback or a memory or a reminiscent. Oddly, Thomas and Linda seemed to have grown more as they aged younger, from fifty-two, to twenty-six, to seventeen, yet at the same time they also seemed more bare as the story progressed; like watching an artist paint on tape and in rewind: a complete portrait, fully painted, worked in reverse until all that remained were the sketches, skeletal. But aren't skeletons the basic means of support?

I hate you for giving them writing professions, for making Thomas a poet, and for letting him tell Linda that she's cut out for novels than poems (Did you become a poet because of me?). I hate you for including an exchange of letters, for allowing a peek more intimate than any narration could ever hope to achieve: words written by the characters themselves, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, overall inadequate. As Linda first wrote to Thomas: "I think that words corrupt and oxidize love. That it is better not to write of it."

And to which Thomas promptly replied: "Write me. For God's sake, keep writing."

I am running out of words as to how your book has ruined me, Anita Shreve. And so I will resort to quoting from their brief exchange of love letters - a more adequate show of the agony you have put me through:

"So much has been left unsaid."

Ugh, Anita Shreve. Your book has turned me into a blabbering lovestruck buffoon.

PS. The ending was the death of me. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

Orinigally posted here.

This had a solid spot on my mediocre-books-I'll-never-remember shelf until I read the last two pages where an appallingly bad ending forced me to violently throw it into the books-so-bad-they-make-me-angry trash.**

While still fuming about one of the lamest and most manipulative endings ever written, I had to remind myself that I believe there is a purpose to occasionally reading a bad book. As a reading hobbyist, my main motivation to read is for joy. For the euphoria that comes when I immerse myself in a really spectacular story, essay, fable or parable for a few hours or days and come away a better informed, more empathic person for reading it.

In order to recognize the good stuff, I believe you have to have some experience with the bad. It's the law of opposition for literature. Now, I'm not advocating anyone seek out the tawdry or the trashy. I'm not even sure that kind of stuff counts as literature. But, the more I read, the more comfortable I am with my opinions. If I say or write, "That was incredible." or, "Meh." or even "I hated it!" I'm using all the books I've read before as a sort of gauge. Of course, preference about style, genre or prose is so subjective that it would be impossible to universally call anything "Good" or "Bad" but throughout your own experience as a reader, your own tastes become clear.

This, an attempt to dramatize one of life's great questions - what if? - is bad, in my opinion, because it seems Anita Shreve couldn't pass up a chance to write a book full of gimmicks over one whose plot could stand on its own two feet. From it's reverse chronology format to it's pointless foreshadowing of things that never happened, The Last Time They Met only serves to remind me that there are better books out there.

** no books were actually harmed in the writing of this review

I see a lot of people did not like this book. I understand why, but there are certainly parts or rather a sentence that I HATED but I loved this book. I read it a few years ago and it still haunts me. I would recommend reading it with a friend or group, because you WILL want to discuss this with someone in the know when you finish. This is a book that I will re-read. I think what I like so much about it, besides the wonderful writing, is that it is very different from anything I have ever read.

Read for my book club; it has been a while since I read this author. It tells the story of a consuming love between a man and woman; or does it? Recounted in reverse order in three parts beginning with the present tense. Part one was slow going, using as one of my friends pointed out, overwrought phrases like “…the small trapezoidal carton of nachos” and later “a day without you seems a day un-lived, bearable only because I summon memory, mine subject to the merest oxidation, a faint rust blowing in the breezes.” At other times her descriptions of what can actually be going through our minds was spot on. Part two is more interesting as we learn more of their history trying to figure out what caused them to part. Part three was my favorite as we learn about the beginning of their relationship in all its sweet youth, innocence, and discovery. But then comes the reveal. I feel like saying anymore might be a spoiler of sorts so will wait and discuss this at our meeting. If you’re not in the mood for a depressing surprise ending, which I admit, I did not see coming, you might want to put this one on the back burner. I and my BC friends do not casually swear so perhaps it will be enlightening if I tell you that upon finishing our book, my friend texted me one word to sum up how she felt. It begins with an F. Depending on your POV, that could be a positive or negative.

This book was an ok read until the end...if everything from the car crash forward is invented by Thomas and not real after all, this is a sick delusion and not a love story. I felt cheated at the end. It is something like the time when Cheech and Chong released an otherwise empty record album, with the words "You have just been ripped off" at the end. If you enjoyed that album, you will enjoy this book as well.

Anything Anita Shreve [Anita Shreve] has ever written has moved me. I am thrown into the storyline because of her writing skills. No other writer has ever been able to make me see what is being written. I can picture each character, house, town, etc as though there are photos on the side. There's just something about her writing. I get involved in the story and the characters. When there's a new Anita Shreve book, I get ready for a sleepless night because I can't put the book down.

You know, I've read other stuff by this author, and liked it. Liked it a lot. This is actually the fifth book if hers I've read.

Absolute dreck.

The characters are wooden and unbelievable, like something out of a Russian novel of the last century. They give undue weight to their actions (should I or shouldn't I have this glass of wine?) and are clunky.

Not one of them is memorable.

Really, really disappointed.

The Last Time They Met is a haunting, compelling and beautiful story about a love that is timeless. A love found, lost and then found again through the reliving of memories. A love that is renewed and where future possibilities are inevitably created and visited through the imagination. An imagination that is impossible or improbable without a certain bias and influence of the past, of memories, both weighted with actions and consequences leading us to question the whys, what ifs and the could have beens.

Thomas Janes and Linda Fallon's love story is not characterized with a distinct beginning and end. Rather, the significance of their love is credited on the moments of their love. The moment, their sums of moments dedicated to the living in and the loving for the moment.

Parallel to their love is the element of time, a seamless flow of moments spent together. This love is not a static foundation, like a house that absorb, contain, and perhaps even restrain love to a place and time. Thomas and Linda share a love that is like a river, like water, not solid but liquid. Their love flow from places to between spaces, sometimes emerging on foreign shores, sometimes tumultuous or calm but never static. The constant is the echoes of the past, which continue to haunt their present and future. Theirs is a love not strengthened through the length of time accumulated, but in the episodes of their lives that the story divides into. They are connections that speak of a love discovered, a love affirmed and then longed for.

Finality is a noted absence in the story, not unlike life or the imagination but it allow for a realistic element. Even the imagination can face contraint with reality. The answer to why didn't Thomas and Linda's love succeed in earlier moments, specifically in the second phase when they have found it again and affirmed it, is found in the final phase of their story (the beginning of their love). A phase where reality dictates and even the imagination, the human mind cannot reject it.

A story that tell of a life unfulfilled, a love fulfilled, though not finitely, but in the moments in which memories are derived.

I'm a big Anita Shreve fan...and eagerly await each new book she writes. That said, however, this one is truly terrible. Was this really written by the author of the incredible "The Weight of Water"??? She forces the comparison, since this book is a vastly inferior sequel. Both books had a gimmick at their core, but the gimmick is all this sequel is about. This isn't the first book of hers that's poorly plotted, but usually her moving prose and intricately-drawn characters more than compensate for any weaknesses of story. But this time, even her prose fails her. The writing is, at times, excruciatingly bad and laughably self-conscious. If that wasn't bad enough, she tacks on a so-called "twist" ending that's infuriating in it's absurdity. More than that, the contrived twist ending is basically a big screw-you to the readers who've slogged through this embarrassing gimmick masquerading as a novel. Don't bother with this one, folks.... and cross your fingers that Shreve returns to her excellent form in her next book.

Definitely contains spoilers this review so beware. I loved this novel. I saw Anita speak at a bookshop in Paris and was curious enough to read this, my first Shreve. I then went on to read everything she had written but nothing moved me like this one.

I finished this novel in a sushi restaurant in Paris (as one does). Just one page before the end I felt it come on…….the shocking impact of this story about the disappointment in one man and one woman’s life together. Apart. In this novel we arrive at the beginning of their story in the last few pages, the chronology has been related in reverse and here we are, at the start of the inevitable unraveling of a life.

Dreams wiped out in one fatal moment, never to be salvaged. I was on the verge of tears…in public...it was so unexpected … overwhelming, the profound understanding I had of what this man was about to lose. It resonated with so many parts of me that I could not hold on to myself. I put the book down, suddenly, urgently….I would not allow myself to break down in that intimate, quiet, public space.

I finished the last page later, in private.

One of my favorite books. This is haunting, beautiful, magical and shocking. This is one of those books that is best appreciated by those who are past their 20s. You look back on your life and wonder about the what might have been, what ifs, if onlys. You know that one moment or one event can change the whole course of your entire life.

This tells the story of intense love between Linda and Thomas who first meet as high school teenagers then as young adults and much later as adults just past their prime when both have established themselves in similar careers. He's nationally known poet and she too is a poet, but more moderately successful. The story goes backward from the present to the past. It starts when they meet again in their 50s at a literary conference where both are speakers. They meet only about three times in their adult lives, but they have a deep, believable connection to each other. Their respective spouses, the children they love, and other events keep them apart though they never lose their love for each other. I enjoyed the love story. It's not overly sweet or cloying. I've read a lot of love stories over the years, but this one has stayed with me because it's so surprising and so haunting in its longing. I don't know if I believe in soulmates, but this story makes me want to believe in it. Thomas and Linda are truly two halves of a whole.

Shreve writes with clarity and sparse prose. This isn't some predictable mass market romance novel. The story comes together at the last page and boy, what a stunner it is.
You'll be amazed. What other story ties everything together in the last page and a half. You're either going to love or hate the ending. There's no middle ground.

Now I like the ending. I can take a sad ending, after all stories can't all have happy endings, but the ending of this book comes isn't sad. It's a complete shocker. You'll say to yourself, "Wait! Did I read that right?" You go and read the book again to make sense of it. You realize why the book was written in reverse because that's the only way to make sense of the ending. I loved the ending, but it's painful. At first I was shocked then angry then ultimately I realized the beauty of it. That's all I can say without giving it away. I have to give Shreve credit for the ending. Not many writers can pull off such a surprise. You DO NOT SEE the ending coming AT ALL. You think it might end one of two ways, but no..there's a third option you never saw although it's hinted at here and there. Whether you love the ending or hate it, not many authors can surprise you at the very last page of the story. It's the hallmark of a great writer

I don't want to go on and on about the ending for I fear I might turn away someone from an otherwise great love story. Please read the book, but don't be tempted to read the ending first no matter how tempted you are. Allow yourself to be transported to the very end the way Shreve intended.

I have to say that I found it difficult to not only get into this book, but to stay into it. I found myself skimming through pages because of the excessive and unnecessary descriptions of things/events/people that really had no impact on the story. It may be my nature as a scientist but the superfluous writing by Shreve is just not my style. The letters between the two main characters, although seemingly important, were pure torture for me to read. I also had trouble with the format of the story from present to past. I read the book without knowing anything about it so it took until the middle of the book for me to realize that was the structure and maybe if I understood this ahead of time I may have been better prepared and accepting of it. I'm still confused about the ending which seemed unnecessary but I didn't enjoy the book enough to re-read it to discover what it meant for the story that had been told.

As for the characters of Thomas and Linda, while I found their predicaments understandable, it still doesn't mean that I agree with their actions. In my opinion this was not a story of unrequited love or even a Romeo and Juliet-type love, just two people who chose to be with their spouses out of requirement, instead of returning to their true loves, and resenting their spouses for it. The real courage would have been being honest with their spouses from the beginning and providing them the opportunity to have real love stories of their own.

I loved the altered time line in this book and admire the skill that went into pulling it off. Plus, the story of these two lovers engaged me right away. A funny thing about Shreve's ratings on goodreads: I seem to love the books that are rated lowest and vice versa (I never made it through Resistance, for example).

I really, really enjoyed this book. Wonderful prose, paradigm shifting angle. Thought provoking story.

Part III

Remember the last time we read Anita Shreve's "The Last Time They Met"? As you'll recall, it's a love story told in three parts - in reverse. Pretty clever, eh?

Linda Fallon is a shy, minor poet preparing to read at a literary festival in Toronto. It's tangled with the usual collection of snobs, frauds, and sycophants. Fretting in her hotel room, she wishes she could write anonymously, but she knows these strained social engagements are good for her career and her confidence.

Since the death of her husband, much of the joy in her life has shriveled away. Nothing could surprise her more than the sudden appearance of Thomas Janes, the world-renowned poet, returning from a long grief-ridden exile.

He's so great that when he enters the conference, "a mild hush" falls over the room. When he speaks, "it seemed the audience held its breath, lest breathing cause the people there to miss a word." Reading this, I wanted to hold my breath, too.

We never get to hear any of Thomas's world-renowned poems, but "the applause that followed was - one had to say it - thunderous." This is - one has to say it - cliche.

Linda and Thomas were lovers years ago in Africa, and then years earlier in Boston. We know this because they ask each other questions like, "Do you remember when we were lovers years ago in Africa and then years earlier in Boston?"

It's a weekend of painful memories tinged with first mysterious and then tedious references to love, regret, incest, abortion, betrayal, and death - and the names of people we don't know. It's something like attending your spouse's college reunion.

But this first (last?) section ends on a hopeful note, the possibility of renewed love between two people ravaged by tragedy.

Linda turns away and thinks, "Years had passed, and all of life was different now." This is a very significant point. We can tell because it's repeated again at the end of the chapter in italics. In italics.

Part II

Halfway through "The Last Time They Met," I'm beginning to worry. Shreve can't resist her own meretricious prose. What's always been a patina of romantic melodrama in her writing has rusted into this novel's joints.

One of the challenges of telling a story in reverse is that the dramatic tension is constantly undercut. Everything is preempted by characters telling us about what happened to them before we get there. (In fact, if only Linda had read "The Weight of Water," Thomas wouldn't have had to recycle the tragic story of his daughter's drowning from Shreve's 1996 novel.)

But when these two lovers run into each other in Kenya, the story catches gear and moves forward with great promise. A marvelous researcher, Shreve re-creates the natural and political conditions of Nairobi in all its rich, contradictory detail.

Thomas, a young, largely unknown poet, is trapped in a land he can't understand and manacled to a woman he can't love. Linda, meanwhile, is married to a pleasant Englishman and works for the Peace Corps.

The two have no interest in hurting their spouses, but their passion, smoldering since they were teens, can't be extinguished. They meet in romantic hideaways. We get to read their love letters, texts that make their eventual success as writers seem truly astounding.

All the painful memories they recalled at that literary festival in the first part of the novel fill us with anticipation for the life-wrecking consummation they claimed took place back here in Africa. We couldn't be more primed for the climactic confrontation between the adulterers and their spouses at a fancy diplomatic party. It has the makings of a spectacular moment that Shreve can orchestrate like no one else. Here it comes....

Then it doesn't.

Now, on to those lusty teen years.

Part I

Last winter, Anita Shreve gave a reading at the Brookline Booksmith, one of the best independent booksellers left in Boston. Those of us without tickets waited more than an hour in the freezing night air for a chance to grab standing room in the basement venue.

Most of us were clutching copies of "The Pilot's Wife" or her just-released "Fortune's Rocks." By the time Shreve took the podium, the windowless room was packed with devoted readers. (If the fire marshal had objected, we would have bludgeoned him to death with our treasured copies of her books.)

I've just heard Shreve has a new novel coming out called "The Last Time They Met." Supposedly, there's a shocking surprise on the last page that changes everything. I can't wait. It seems like a dream.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0405/p2...

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I feel like I should have known the ending, just from the difference in punctuation from the first two parts of the book compared to the last. I nthe first two sections all converstations are in italics and in the last section, the conversations are puncutated normally, with quotation marks, etc. However, in the first two sections, ALL conversations are in italics, even conversations that don't involve Linda. Does that mean that Thomas imagined his entire life?

I think the author meant it to be a kind of "Sixth Sense" OMG ending, but it just didn't work for me. The last two paragraphs were intended to have you rethink the whole story, but to me, it just doesn't fly. If you take one of the two main characters out of the first two sections, whole scenes just do not work anymore.

Not so much shocking, as contrived and unbelievable.

This is by far my favorite book by my favorite author! Anita Shreve's voice in all her books is wonderful and unique. Her ability to write scenes that I absolutely can envision, as if I'm in the same room, is a skill that not many master! Someday, when I become a famous author, I hope I can write with the quality and emotion that Anita Shreve does in all her novels, and that readers will enjoy my writing just as much as I enjoy the works of Anita Shreve.

I must admit that when I first read this book (years ago) that I wondered why dialogue in this novel was sometimes preceded with dashes instead of quotation marks, and that it was also set in italics sometimes. That might put some readers off at first, but keep reading, and later you'll understand why the author did it like that.

Tell me if Anita Shreve doesn't soon become one of your favorite authors too! Seriously! Let me know what you think after you read this novel.

I find that Anita Shreve has such an unusual style of writing that it takes me several chapters to get ‘into’ her books but then I’m totally hooked. The idea of working back in time through the characters lives doesn’t always work but I felt it was necessary, in this novel, in order to produce the impact at the end. I literally had goosebumps as I read the final couple of pages. I loved the section set in Kenya, the description really made those scenes come alive. Really enjoyed it!

Shreve writes beautifully, but it is the ending that really sold me to this book which sometimes slowed and moved around so I got a little lost/bored/unfocused. Great story which I had to go back and read bits again to try and work it all out. Rather wonderful.

The Last Time They Met is a story of star-crossed lovers. The book is split into 3 parts moving backwards.

It starts when they're 52 at a chance meeting at a literary festival. Linda and Thomas are both celebrated poets that have been in love since they met in high school at the age of 17.

Moving backwards to when they're 26 years old in Africa. Thomas is there because his wife has a grant through UNICEF. Linda met her husband while there for the Peace Corps. Both surrounded by poverty and disease they find relief from the everyday horrors in each other.

Going further into the past to when they're 17 you find out how they met and fell in love.

** spoiler alert **I started to like this book more and more as it regressed to the past. I can actually say I loved this book. But the ending. The very last page. I was crushed. And I felt cheated. What could have been a beautiful story turned into a gimmick and farce.

I have read a lot of reviews concerning the ending and here's my take: Thomas imagined the whole thing. Thomas needs to ease his guilt for being the reason she doesn't live past the age of 17 so they don't end up together. The entire book is a 'what-if' scenario and completely depressing.

I do not even know where to begin with this book. I checked out this book a year ago and 20 pages into the book I gave up on it. A week ago I see the book for sale and I am wondering to myself that this sounds like an interesting read. I read the first couple of pages and it hits me that I tried reading this book and found it boring. Even though I thought this, I kept on reading, and to be honest I am very glad I continued reading.

This book is brilliant and beautiful. It is the perfect balance of everything__ description, imagery, flashbacks and dialogue. This book is so masterfully written, it takes you up, it brings you down. Sweet moments, sad moments, everything is the perfect balance. This isn't a book that is rushed; this book is savored and appreciated. Granted the flashbacks in the flashbacks had to make me reread a few pages, but it was still so beautiful; even to the very end...

I was surprised that I had missed this book by Shreve, I thought I had read all of her books, so I picked this one up at the library because I had heard that it had a shocking ending.
It was shocking all right, but since I knew that it had that type of ending, I kind of figured out where it was going before it got there. I'm honestly not sure how I felt about it--manipulated maybe?
Shreve's prose is second to none and she will be very missed as an author. I like the way she turns a phrase even if I don't always like or connect with her plots.
My favorite portions of this book were the ones that took place in Africa.
But So, so wordy and way way way way too detailed for something that was happening in a split second as she was dying. Especially the modern day segments. I think this book premise would have worked so much better as a short story or novella

Spoiler alert-- Waste of time. I was never able to get that into it anyway and then the ending was ridiculous. If anyone understands the ending any better than me let me know. I am assuming that the whole book was "linda's future flashing before her eyes." I read in Anita Shreve's interview at the end that there were supposed to be clues to the ending throughout the book, but I can't think of any. Also why does every book these days have to have some form of child abuse in it? I am kind of sick of it. Maybe I need to read a good cheesy love story from Nicholas Sparks. Does he have anything new out?

And in the last sentence it all made sense

I struggled with this style of writing and didn’t gel with this book but the last two pages kind of made it all make sense

This works backwards so starts with Thomas and Linda in their mid 50s as they bump into each other at a literary festival and the what could have been conversations start. You kind of build a picture of what may have happened and then flip back over 20 years to them being 26 when they had last met and finally to 17 when they first met

I’m guessing like Joanna Trollope you may love her style of writing and fall into her books for something safe and familiar. For me I wasn’t a fan

ow to choose a favorite among Shreve's books? Not easy, but I'm going to recommend this nostalgic yet ambitious story of star-crossed lovers who meet across nearly four decades. If you love stories of first love and second chances and what might have been, do not miss it.

The author can write, and there were some moments of brilliance (which is why I am giving it a 2 rather than just a 1). But there were too many parentheticals in Linda's sections, and the use of the italics rather than the quotations annoyed me. I personally thought the coincidence of meeting in Africa was too hard to believe, and the characters were way too effusive in their conversations and letters. I wondered why, until of course, I figured it all out at the very end, which was RIDICULOUS. I felt manipulated, and like I'd wasted my time reading the book, except for the aforesaid-mentioned moments of brilliance where the author so perfectly captures certain emotions. But, I would not recommend this book to anyone because of how much I despised the ending.

I've read this book several times over the years, and every time it manages to surprise me. Which is a pretty good reason for you to read it to begin with.

While this book is probably not one of the best out there, it sticks with you. Weeks down the road after reading about it you find yourself thinking about it.

It is a study on love. Love and loss, and what happens when the pieces just don't quite fit and love keeps slipping through your fingers.

And the jarring ending, which could very easily mar total satisfaction in this book actually adds an entirely new dimension. It makes you want to turn back and read the whole thing all over again with a more discerning eye.

I have read all the reviews. But I think most readers dont understand why the last sentence is the way it is. This pointed to his character and explains why all this was done, it actually was the core of the story. My friend did not get it either, , I had to explain it to her. I thought it was marvelous manipulation on the part of the author, for I never had a clue as to what she was up to. It was a little maddening but Im glad I did not figure it out, hence the thrill of the story.. Remember he was a famous author and what do great writers do?????? Create great stories.

The Last Time They Met By Anita Shreve Linda and Thomas were writers; and while at a gathering they saw each other for the first time in many years. They shared reminicing of their families and life and past love experiences. The reader felt the warmth of their love and the feeling of being there with them. The author laid out the events of the book that when the reader read the last page it was extreme shocking. I loved the book. ( own)