Customer Reviews

Be Mine

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this about an hour after reading the interesting USA TODAY article, and devoured it in two days. This book is so full of twists and surprises, you better not read it in public, because you'll be gasping every ten pages. That's one of the great things about it; the other is that Kasishke is one of the best writers around. The descriptions are dazzling. The description of the relationship between mother and son will be completely familiar to anyone who is a parent. This is, as others here say, very sexy and mysterious, but it's also meaningful, and layered. I highly recommend this book.

As others have said here, I was really blown away by the depth of this novel. The situation starts out very sexy but you really have to keep an open mind with what follows. I felt it was so edgy that it seemed really fresh. I can't remember anything like it except maybe Joyce Carol Oates.
More importantly, it kept me reading and guessing for the whole time I was reading it. I mean it's very nice that the writing is so strong and beautiful, as others have said here, but the story is also really amazing and memorable.
I don't read novels for great atmosphere, but this had both a lot of great imagery and landscape but a great storyline too. I recommend it to anyone.

...at my book club. We've had some lively discussions about other novels, but "Be Mine" brought out some deeply felt and conflicting emotions, both about Sherry's actions in the novel and about our own family experiences. It was interesting to read other Amazon reviews, since our book group was firmly divided in its opinions about the novel along the same lines. Some of us could not look past Sherry's choice to have an affair; some of us felt empathy for Sherry's boredom and midlife issues. What surprised me was the strength of everyones' feelings and opinions! Rarely has a book gotten us so worked up! The novel's subject matter and characters certainly inspired strong emotions. In our case, discussion of the book segued into some emotional exploration of similar situations in some of our personal histories.

If you want a provocative book that will make you think and feel outside your comfort zone, I would highly recommend "Be Mine". Be prepared to get some blood with your roses!

I don't read mysteries, or thrillers, or romances, and while I agree that this book seems mistakenly billed as all three of these, I picked it up because I've been so impressed by this author in the past. I was NOT disappointed. My experience, reading the first section of this book, was, "Oh, Kasischke has written an escapist novel..." But the book got deeper and deeper and stranger and more exciting. I can see why the thriller/romance fans were surprised/upset. This book takes you on a very wild ride, and it's to nowhere you thought you were going when you set out. If you like a predictable plot, you won't like this! It's much more interesting than that. This is literature without the 'lite'--it had me by the throat for the last hundred pages, but I was also really sad to finish it.

If you're a Kasischke fan, you won't be disappointed. If you're not, you will be. This is her most amazing novel yet. If you want to read something that's sexy, but poetic/intellectual, suspenseful, but thought-provoking/political, this is it. The novel starts out in a kind of normal world of a woman in her forties, but soon spins to a kind of surreal and tragic end. There is so much implied by the fates of the characters by the ending, and about the current state of the world. About war, and decadence, and the American psyche of the last decades. Keep an open mind about what happens, and you'll see that this book has the weight of a classic. I can't praise it sufficiently. You need to read it!

What an erotic read! Kasischke doesn't tell you about the affair, she takes you into it and unlike some other writers, she doesn't use any euphemisms for sex. The story of the affair unfolds in such a compelling way that you may even feel a little like a voyeur -
Be careful not to read any reviews that give away the plot because there are twists and turns throughout - I've already ordered another of her books and plan to read them all.

A dark thriller/romance about the life of a woman who is now reaching middle age and whose life as an empty nester has gotten just a bit dull. She is ripe for an affair that as you can expect brings forth a whole series of unforseen and unwelcome events.

While the story follows certain predictable patterns, in the long run such an affair can never be beneficial to the lovers in a book. The writing and the twists and turns of the story make it a delightful read. Ms Kasischke brings every passion out into the open: desire, romance, the thrill of a new love, fear and death, friendship and more.

This is the authors fourth novel. With each one she has grown and developed her skills as a storyteller.

This is a novel you'll either love or hate. I LOVED it. The writing is gorgeous. Every sentence is like sipping a perfect wine. I can't imagine how anyone could think the ending was predictable. It blew me away. But I'm not a reader of mysteries or thrillers, and if I had a gripe about this book it's that I would have been just as happy to have the writer turn this into the psychological/literary story it started out as, as turn into the heart-stopping rollercoaster ride it became. I'd also just say about the dead animals and the commas--this is an ordinary woman's DIARY. She's not a writer, she's a melodramatic piece of work, so this book would have been completely wrong if it had been toned down. As it was, I was mesmerized and in love, and I recommend it highly!

I agree with those who say it was suspenseful, and also that the ending is a shock, but what I liked about this book is that there's so many layers of meaning. I think it needed to end the way it does because this is not a romance kind of novel, or a movie script. If you like Dannielle Steele you will hate this book. It has got a lot of metaphor going on, and the character of Garret stand for a lot more than just a guy, so what happens to him in the end makes a great deal of meaning for everything that has happened so far. I think the controversy about whether this is the best or the worst book ever has to do with the way people are reading it, and also that they make it look like a typical thriller when really it is a lot more like a David Lynch movie or a Kafka novel than anything else. This book is meaningful to me, and I think anyone who is more interested in thinking and in poetry than in just reading a mystery novel would like it but otherwise you won't.

It all begins with a note on Valentine's Day. "Be mine," it says. Then there are more notes. Apparently, middle-aged English teacher Sherry Seymour has a secret admirer. When she meets her admirer, she has an affair with him. Why not? She's a married woman in her forties, with a grown child going to college. Her husband seems to get off on the idea that his wife is sleeping with another man. From the on, Sherry's life is never the same. Nothing is what it seems, and the chains of events that follow are dark, disturbing and suspenseful. What people don't know won't hurt them -- but what happens when they do know or, at least, believe they know some version of the truth?

Be Mine is one of the most intriguing erotic thrillers I have read in a while. Laura Kasischke knows how to build up suspense and create characters and situations that keep you guessing. Just when you think the story is headed in one direction, it takes you somewhere else, and that is how a good thriller should be written. Sherry is a wonderful character. She is complex and multi-dimensional. She's not just a woman with a midlife crisis; she wants to feel beautiful, desired, and her behavior is at times narcissistic. Her husband Jon struck me as sort of sick with his obsessive Penthouse-like fantasy, but he, too, is a well-woven character. The book is very erotic, and the author knows how to fuse erotica with a compelling story. Two things bother me about this novel though. Some events regarding the affair came off as abrupt and dismissive. I won't go into details so as not to spoil potential readers, but the novel sort of falls apart at the end, as if the author couldn't wait to wrap things up. Another thing I didn't like was the fact that I had discovered what was going on and was just waiting for Sherry to catch up. Other than that, I loved this novel. I couldn't put it down, and the last sentence is pretty thought-provoking. Perhaps it is not as good as The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Vertigo by Lauren Baratz-Logsted or The Other Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey (my favorite reads from last year), but it is still very good. I recommend Be Mine and I look forward to reading other books by Laura Kasischke.