Customer Reviews

Distant Shores

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jack and Elizabeth "Birdie" Shore are at a crossroads. After 24 years of marriage, they have raised two beautiful girls and withered the storm of Jack's rise and fall as a football star and his addiction to pain killers. Now Jack's career as a sportscaster is rising, and on the outside, everything looks perfect. But Elizabeth feels she is losing herself. She has raised her children, lifted Jack when he stumbled, and forgiven him for the times he strayed earlier in their marriage. She gave up her dream of becoming a painter because she thought that was what she was supposed to do. But when he beloved father dies suddenly, she realizes how empty her life truly is. And when Jack takes a job that will take him to New York, Elizabeth, for the first time, doesn't follow him and remains in Oregon, hoping to find what will give her her own identity.

Distant Shores is a wonderful, soul searching novel about two people who have lost their way. They're not bad people, and they haven't done terrible things. They still love each other, but as times change and they become different people, they wonder if they love each other enough. Few writers get to the heart of this as well as Kristin Hannah. You will sympathize with both Jack and Elizabeth, understand both their points of view, and hope they will find their way back to each other before it's too late. Very highly recommended.

Maybe I would have liked this book better if I had not suffered through the egregious unabridged audio, with singularly untalented reader Bernadette Quigley, who, throughout the entire book, put her inflections on the wrong words as though she were reciting by rote rather than looking at what she was reading. Example, "Thank you," Elizabeth SAID.

Once having gotten used to that weirdness, one is blown away by the plethora of cliches contained in only one small book. Middle-aged woman faces empty nest and boredom in her marriage. Husband wants something more. Wife wants to "find herself." College-age bratty daughters want mom and dad to stay together forever so they feel secure.

The middle-aged wife, Elizabeth, was once a promising painter, but of course she got married and gave up painting and yada yada yada...husband Jack was once a star quarterback, but "blew out his knee" and got addicted to painkillers, so now he's a third-string TV commentator in Oregon. He yearns to be back in the bigtime. Yawn. Daughters are polar opposites, but both at Georgetown University, sharing a room (as if!!). Back in Tennessee, Elizabeth's Daddy is almost a mockery of grade C Southern Tobacco Grower movies. Stepmother Anita has piled up hair and high heeled shoes and Elizabeth hates her.

Enough. This is probably an OK book to read on a boring plane ride or better yet, when stuck in the airport. But don't expect a single original thought or word.

Yes, it happens, and this author gets just a whole lot of it EXACTLY right. I do wish I could have LIKED Elizabeth (Birdie) Shore a little better, "poor little misunderstood rich girl" comes to mind here, though. The Jackson Shore character really didn't have much depth to him beyond himself and his beloved sports. Did he ever really "get it"? Some of the women characters were richly sketched, and the daughters were artfully portrayed as a study in contrasts. The setting on the Oregon coast was well detailed and occasionally breathtaking but does it match the rather tropical looking cover of the book? Just a lot of bits and pieces that did not work for me - the single handed destruction of the dining room wall being one of them. Some of the rough language seems to come from no where and seems unnecessary and a bit trite. Not a favorite book, but Ms. Hannah does have an interesting spin on the staleness of a marriage, what makes a family, and finding yourself again.

I'm feeling a lot of the same things that Elizabeth (our heroin) went through. I am on the back burner. I'm still raising my children (13 yrs. & 2 yrs) and I have been married for 14 1/2 years. We were married at 19.

My children come first (that will always remain), then my husband, and finally me.
Like Elizabeth, I was feeling like I didn't matter very much. I don't work out of my home, so I felt that my needs are not as important.

After reading this book, I realized that I am a person of my own. I became my own mother and I was feeling unhappy. I DO matter and I have dreams worth following and fighting for.
I see that it's too easy to loose yourself. I'm only 33 and already I couldn't see myself in the mirror.
Thank you Ms. Hannah, I'm learning to find my voice again, and the spunky girl my husband fell in love with.

I love this book.

Forty-five years old Elizabeth feels her marriage to former Superbowl MVP Jackson Shore is failing as she feels she has lost her identity to her children and her spouse. With the kids in college, Elizabeth needs something else to overcome the empty nest syndrome and her perception of lost purpose, but concludes that her relationship to Jack is not the answer to her needs. Jack has his problems too as he threw away a golden opportunity in the broadcast booth due to drug abuse and is struggling one step at a time towards redemption.

Jack obtains the break he needs when Portland, Oregon station intern Sally Maloney provides him a tip on a story involving college basketball superstar Drew Grayland. As he seeks collaborating proof on Drew's wrongdoing including date rape, his own marriage is collapsing. As Jack breaks the Drew story, Elizabeth withdraws further from him. Is this marriage between two college sweethearts over or will they find a path to happiness together?

This is an insightful middle age relationship tale that goes deep inside the psyche of the two lead characters, in which love no longer fosters communication. The story line takes the reader inside the head mostly of the disenchanted Elizabeth, but also provides a chance to see what motivates a disgraced former golden boy to seek his former glory. Though the ending is a bit too idealistic for the tone of the plot, fans of powerful dramas with strong characters will want to read Kristin Hannah's DISTANT SHORES.

Harriet Klausner

Her children are grown and her husband is eagerly pursuing an opportunity to recapture the brilliance of a lost career. Suddenly she has no purpose, feels lost and out of touch with herself. Kristan Hannah delves into that segment of life that seems to hit all of us as our children reach out and discover their own independence and she does it as if she had lived each scene. A touching tale from a fabulous writer with the talent to keep us reading more from her in the future.
Beverly J Scott author of Righteous Revenge

This is the first time I have read a Kristin Hannah book, but I already purchased her newest. Maybe it's an age thing, but "chick lit" is for younger women, and what I jokingly call women's lit or "pink fiction" is for those of us who have been married and settled and suddenly facing a crisis bigger than ordering a Cosmopolitan or a martini and whether to bed the boss.The protagonist is not dancing around in Prada or Versace, she doesn't spend hours in the health club while writing ad copy or legal briefs. She is a very realistic, married, 40s+ woman. Elizabeth's character in this book goes through some major transformations. She is not one-dimensional. Hannah draws a well-rounded character-read the book and you will see this is almost a pun. I would have liked her to develop Elizabeth's relationships with her children more, but the book is a definite page-turner. This was definitely above the usual summer beach reads.

So we have two people in there 40's. The female is an artist that put her dreams on hold to take care of her philandering husband and children. Now that her kids are out of the house and she realizes just how boring being married to a selfish lout can be she decides to ask for a separation.

So they separate she joins a passionless group and starts painting again. He starts banging his assistant and feels guilty about it because he used to be a serial cheater until his wife gave him the ultimatum, your family or your lust. He chooses his family and is never really happy with that decision. Now he has everything he ever wanted and he is lonely because his wife is no longer there to brag too. He realizes that he can't relate to his daughters without his wife's help because he has always been too selfish to try. So now he has a problem, either he keeps sleeping with girls his daughters age and slowly loses even the small connection he has to his family or he decides to finally be an adult rather then just play at being one. Yawn. Truthfully he should have told his assistant that sleeping with the people you work with is a stupid and dangerous thing to do. Though I think the assistant figured that one out for herself.

The wife thinks she is a failure because her paintings did not sell out on the first day. Get real, Van Gough lost an ear and nobody gave a darn about Vermeer until decades after his death. As an artist I would think she would know that art is subjective and tourists are not the best people to gauge your work by, duh. Anyway, she finally becomes friends with her step mom after her father dies (the springboard for the story). I think the adultery was gleaned over and is something that should have been addressed. His wife was faithful for 25 years and well he wasn't. Yeah he finally figured out that he really did not deserve her. Which is my problem with this book. Why should she have to go back again to this man? Why not allow her to meet a man who is worthy of her? This book is supposed to be a precautionary tale not to take your family and love for granted. Well in the end everything was just great and all their problems were resolved with a quick conversation. Where is the lesson in that? Boring.

How many of us spend out lives taking care of everyone else and letting our own needs fall by the wayside? Kristin Hannah takes us into the life of Elizabeth (Birdie) Shore who is doing this very thing. A death in the family at a time in her life when she has so many questions helps her to break away to try and find the answers. Along the way she learns to no longer take herself for granted and to accept that she is a person with her own needs and wants. She resurrects her dreams and takes those first frightening steps to make those dreams come true. In the end she finds that she can be her own person as well as a loving wife and mother. A wonderful book for all of us needing inspiration to take that very first scary step to make our dreams come true and to learn to appeciate ourselves in whatever relationships we have in our lives.

It was painful for me to get through this book. I just finished reading "Night Road" by Hannah and I could not put it down! I even took it to work with me so I could read it any spare moment I got!! After that I went to the library to check out more Hannah books....this was my next one and I was so disappointed. I really just found this to be a boring story, and it was difficult for me to even finish to book. I am giving Hannah one more shot with Firefly Lane...Hopefully I will not be disappointed with that one too.
But as for Distant Shores....I do not recommend....Keep your Distance!