This book tells the story of eight different couples, and the various choices, sacrifices, and struggles that they each encounter in finding and keeping love. It shows each of the people both before and after the 9/11 New York Tragedy. The characters were easy to relate to, even though at times it was hard to follow. It was interesting to see how the differences in the relationships, and even how each person interacted with each other, post 9/11. Even though you don’t realize how something like that could impact personal relationships and love, it truly does.
Some of the characters were not fully developed or followed as much as I would have liked for them to have been. I would have liked to know more about each of the people, but there’s only so much information that you can fit inside a book. This may have been Abbott’s debut novel, but I would definitely look for other novels written by her. ( )

This book seemed deeply fragmented -- bits and pieces all over the place, people all over the place, ideas and issues that are scattered far and wide. And that could've worked -- it could've been the reflection of September 11, it could've been the thing that made it work... but it didn't for me. It seems do both too much and too little -- in trying to pack in so much, some of the characters are sketched in with the barest lines which, again, can be a dramatic and functional thing, but the brush strokes were of stereotypical, rather than telling things. ( )

The book is about eight different couples and their encounters in finding love. It was okay but many of the characters were not fully developed. ( )

I got an ARC of this from librarything.com as part of their early readers program. I was so pleased! I was immediately caught up in the story. It centers around a group of characters, all connected to each other, who live in New York in 2001. The first half of the book introduces you to each character. Each chapter is told from a different character's point of view, and I found this technique really effective. You'd get one person's perspective, and then get another version of the story from a different character. It made the people seem very real and I felt like I understood most of them very well. Then 911 hits and suddenly everything is different. I had never read such a detailed account of what it was like to actually be in New York when the towers were hit. It was nice to read about characters expressing the same fears and reactions I had when that happened, even the ones people didn't want to admit to at the time. I thought the whole story was beautifully written. This is Shirley Abbot's first novel, but she's already written some very well received memoirs. I'll definitely be checking those out.

This novel covers about a year in the lives of several characters in New York City and the Catskills, with 9/11 occurring right in the middle. Each chapter is about a particular character, but the older couple, Sam and Antonia, are the most fully developed, followed by Maggie and Mark, a young couple with serious marital angst. I never felt like putting the book down for good, but at the same time the parts of the book that did not ring true were difficult to enjoy. The author was much more effective with the characters' internal dialogue than conversations among the characters. There were stilted sentences, including much use of the words "you must" coming from the mouth of a small child. The words did not sound like those that a child would use. Also, some of the dialogue was more like lectures being delivered from one character to another.

There was a lot to like about the book for an older reader. Sam and Antonia were 70-ish lovers who found romance at a time when most younger people assume it is impossible. And I liked some of the talk about the trials of getting older - my favorite quote being from Sam's thoughts: "Aging was a police state. You never knew when the goons would knock at the door and carry you off to some torture chamber or other. Why dwell on it?" For those who are not strangers to the medical system in the United States, this seems an apt description.

The book could not do justice to all the characters, making some of them seem more like charicatures. There was the gay male dancer, the very odd Southern Baptist daughter of Jewish parents, the older couple, the younger couple, the passionate, empathic mistress, the bi-racial lesbian couple. But within each relationship the author captured much truth and understanding, and it was certainly a realistic look at the undercurrent of uncertainty and discontent that many couples experience. ( )