Random Hearts

Rating:
Summary: Thank goodness I didn't have to pay for this!
Review: Great plot starting out. It really sounded like it had promise, which I am sure is why a friend bought it for me. Two people running away from their marriages die in a plane crash. How would the surviving spouses react to their affair? I like romance and all. But, I could barely finish it. What a waste!
How many ways can someone find to say "I love you" within 5 pages??? This was so trite, with so little character developement I cannot even recall the characters' names. But then why would I even want to do so? There are very few books that I have read that I could not find something in them to like. This was one.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome story, well sustained
Review: I thought this was a very unique little book, and it kept my interest from the first to last page because its characters were not predictable. I liked the heroine more and more as the story progressed...she was such a strong person. And I liked the twist re. her attitude toward her little boy. Not stereotypically female at all! I don't want to spoil the plot (not at all like the movie - much, much better) but I would encourage people to read it. It's a lot of fun and thought-provoking.

Rating:
Summary: A easy to read romantic mystery
Review: I too got the book from the library. The pain each of them felt seemed very real. Then the pain changes to immense anger. The book is an easy read that kept my attention. If the movie succeeds then I would guess they will release a paperback of the book, but look in your library if you want it sooner. Another thing, don't expect the movie to be like the book. They have changed the names of all the characters.

Rating:
Summary: gordon's opinion of a sleeper
Review: Orson and Lily meet by accident on an airplane ride and have one of those instant, unexpected physical reactions to each other. They seem to be the perfect match for each other and quickly arrange to meet again. When they next meet the attraction is still there and they quickly progress into a physical relationship. They think they are in love and want to move forward with their lives together, but there is one problem...they are both married...to other people.

Lily dreads telling Edward, her husband, and Orson doesn't know what Vivien, his wife, will do without him, but they cannot bear to stop seeing one another. They finally decide to go away to Florida for 4 days and make a final decision as to how they are going to tell Edward and Vivien and when. Unfortunately, their plane crashes right outside of the airport and they never tell their spouses.

Both Edward and Vivien are relieved that their spouses were not on the plane that went down, after all, Orson was on his way to Paris and Vivien was on her way to Los Angeles, so they felt pity for those who had friends and relatives on their way to Florida, but went on with their lives. But when they didn't hear from them for several days, they started to worry. When they are called to identify bodies at the morgue from the crash, they are stunned. The police officer tells them that their spouses were traveling together, but that couldn't be, could it? They were dedicated couples and loved and relied on each other - Orson and Lily wouldn't betray their love, their trust, would they? As both Vivien and Edward try to deal with the death of their spouses and their wrenching sense of betrayal, they are inexplicably drawn together and eventually have to decide if it is worth the potential pain to open up and trust and love someone again.

I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't anything spectacular. The characterization is a little blurry and it was hard to understand the motivation of Vivien and Edward at times, like why they wouldn't even tell their respective families that their spouses were cheating on them. The plot got a little slow towards the middle/end of the book and ended rather abruptly, but life doesn't always have starts and finishes so that was okay. All in all, the book was well written and entertaining enough, but then, I didn't buy the book, I borrowed it for free. Is it worth buying? I couldn't say, maybe the movie is better...?

Rating:
Summary: Bittersweet Romance
Review: Orson and Lily meet by accident on an airplane ride and have one of those instant, unexpected physical reactions to each other. They seem to be the perfect match for each other and quickly arrange to meet again. When they next meet the attraction is still there and they quickly progress into a physical relationship. They think they are in love and want to move forward with their lives together, but there is one problem...they are both married...to other people.

Lily dreads telling Edward, her husband, and Orson doesn't know what Vivien, his wife, will do without him, but they cannot bear to stop seeing one another. They finally decide to go away to Florida for 4 days and make a final decision as to how they are going to tell Edward and Vivien and when. Unfortunately, their plane crashes right outside of the airport and they never tell their spouses.

Both Edward and Vivien are relieved that their spouses were not on the plane that went down, after all, Orson was on his way to Paris and Vivien was on her way to Los Angeles, so they felt pity for those who had friends and relatives on their way to Florida, but went on with their lives. But when they didn't hear from them for several days, they started to worry. When they are called to identify bodies at the morgue from the crash, they are stunned. The police officer tells them that their spouses were traveling together, but that couldn't be, could it? They were dedicated couples and loved and relied on each other - Orson and Lily wouldn't betray their love, their trust, would they? As both Vivien and Edward try to deal with the death of their spouses and their wrenching sense of betrayal, they are inexplicably drawn together and eventually have to decide if it is worth the potential pain to open up and trust and love someone again.

I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't anything spectacular. The characterization is a little blurry and it was hard to understand the motivation of Vivien and Edward at times, like why they wouldn't even tell their respective families that their spouses were cheating on them. The plot got a little slow towards the middle/end of the book and ended rather abruptly, but life doesn't always have starts and finishes so that was okay. All in all, the book was well written and entertaining enough, but then, I didn't buy the book, I borrowed it for free. Is it worth buying? I couldn't say, maybe the movie is better...?

Rating:
Summary: In a perfect world this book would never have been written
Review: This book starts out quite well but once the adulterous spouses die in the plane crash the novel also takes a downward plunge. The behaviour of the surviving partners is quite impossible to credit, their motivations hard to comprehend and the romance between is unbelievably cliched and in bad taste.

I somehow can't imagine that this mishmash can be made into a successful film so I think I'll give it a miss.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of an afternoon
Review: This book was so bad I threw it in the trash after reading it. The only point I could get from it were that the surviving spouses were "star crossed lovers" just like the ones that died, so in the end they understood why they had been cheated on. The daughter mentioned on the cover is in the movie, apparently the person who wrote it didn't even bother to read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Which is the optimal way round?
Review: This novel is, essentially, two characters thinking 'I hate you so much right now' to their adulterous dead spouses. And then thinking 'why do I love you so much?' to each other. Given that the novel is so very interior it's a wonder anyone decided to film it. But then again, given the film bears about 0.2% relation to the novel, maybe it's not. Final Score: the novel is (much) better than the film, but then the film was disappointing. So I'm at a loss to know what I'd have thought if I'd read the novel first. Now there's a conundrum.

Rating:
Summary: An Unfortunate Book, A Worse Movie
Review: This was a true waste of time. The characters had no redeeming values. The self absorbtion and total devaluation of the child were abhorant. I read it all thinking it would redeem it's self in the end but it only got worse. One of only a handful of books that I wish I'd never read. The Pilots Wife is a wonderful book dealing with a simular situation and betrayal.

Rating:
Summary: What Brought Them Together?
Review: Would they have ever met, if.....?

This is the story of Edward Davis and Viven Simpson, the surviving spouses of a couple who are killed in a airplane crash on the way to sun, sand, and adultery. He's a congressional assistant from Iowa. She's a dedicated housewife from Vermont. Both were happily married, or so they thought.

When they meet for the first time in the Medical Examiner's office, identifying their deceased spouses' bodies, both are shocked by their betrayal. Their friends and families don't understand how they feel. Homicide Detective McCarthy tells them to get on with their lives. But Edward and Vivien need to know how the affair could have happened. They need to realize the truth about their spouses. And they need to understand themselves.

They come together realizing that only they understand their own emotions, and offer each other the support that they can't expect from their families and friends, who saw them as halves of dedicated couples. His job is on the line. She has a child. But they each need a fresh start.

They each have a matching key belonging to their dead spouses. What do these keys unlock-physically and metaphysically? This is the question that occupies Edward and Vivien throughout the book, and while searching for the answer they become a solidly locked new entity.

Readers may wish that Edward and Vivien would confide the truth to their unsupportive families and friends, especially Edward, who is menaced by his in-laws. It's short and fast-paced, so you get to the end quickly wishing there were more. But it's an exciting read, that keeps you turning the pages all the way through.

Ironically, I read this book just as the World Trade Center buildings came crashing to the ground as the result of airplane crashes. I felt much of my own sense of personal security disappear just as Edward's and Vivien's do. The characters both feel during their psychological journey that they can't trust the people closest to them not to cause them pain. Just as we must all implement new security procedures to protect ourselves, so must Edward and Vivien re-evaluate their relationships with their families and friends-and each other. Can we-and they-ever again feel truly safe? The investigating officer tells them to go on with their lives, just as we have been asked to. But will things ever be the same again? And can we, the survivors of the attacks, come together in a new awareness of ourselves, as do Edward and Vivien? It remains to be seen if the recent tragedies will bring together more random hearts.