Customer Reviews

Islands

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I purchased Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons to take on a vacation to the Low Country of Charleston, SC. Islands is set in Charleston, Sullivan's Island, Edisto and John's Island, so I thought it would be the perfect book. While I enjoyed most of Islands, it morphed into something really bizarre at the end.

Anny Butler is the director of a Charleston children's welfare agency. In the course of her work, she meets orthopedic doctor and native Charlestonian, Lewis Aiken. Aiken falls in love with the spinster Butler (hard to figure out why) and after a whirlwind courtship, they are married. By virtue of their marriage, Anny becomes part of "the Scrubs." The Scrubs consist of four couples, most native Charlestonians. Four of them work in the medical field, and thus the name. The Scrubs have purchased a beach house on Sullivan's Island, and they spend almost every weekend there together. The first day Anny meets the Scrubs, they pledge that when they start failing, they will move in together and take care of each other. Over time, events happen that will change the dynamics of the Scrubs including a hurricane, fires, deaths and infidelity. Three of them take their vow to each other seriously. But story evolves into one of love gone awry, obsession and revenge.

Islands definitely lacks credibility. Dr. Aikens owns a house on The Battery, a house on Bull Street, a big plantation on Edisto and the beach house with the Scrubs. Months and sometimes, years go by without Lewis or Anny using one house or the other. When tragedies occur, most of the Scrubs are likely to abandon one house (without selling it, of course) and purchase something new. They are also likely to disappear for months at a time (don't know of many jobs where such things are possible). The Scrubs forsake their families, children and grandchildren for the sake of the group. And it's a stretch to think that a young librarian would abandon her career (and in some cases, her 7 year old daughter) to become a cook, cleaner and caretaker.

Still, Islands has two great things going for it: the Charleston Low Country and Siddons' rich, lyric writing. Charleston is always a wonderful backdrop, and it was especially interesting reading about how hurricane Hugo affected the locals. Siddons' descriptions of the Low Country can be pure poetry, and only Pat Conroy surpasses her in this regard.

So while Islands wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, it was still a good book for a vacation-especially to the Low Country.

Although I have enjoyed ARS earlier works like Colony and Outer Banks, I find myself getting more and more impatient with each successive offering. I found Islands to be nothing more than one overlong description after another of the too, too wonderful southern climate (even though it is laden with unbearable humidity and mosquitoes), landscape (can pluff mud be mentioned one more time?) cozy houses (all main characters own several, of course), furnishings (lots of rump sprung sofas, whatever that is), wonderful dogs and over privileged people who manage to look like teenagers well into their golden years. All of this puncuated with an occasional death, disappearance or discovery of infidelity thrown in to keep the reader's interest. I, like another reviewer, found myself skimming over some of the more unbearable blather in a desperate search for a plot!

In my opinion, "Islands" is an unreadable piece of work. I found it completely contrived, the characters one dimensional, and the dialogue ridiculous.

I have read and enjoyed every Anne Rivers Siddons book written, with the exception of this book. I can't really put my finger on it, but this book made my skin crawl!!

I am not going to summarize the book, amazon does that quite well! So just my review...
I am a huge fan of Ms. Siddons', I have been reading her books from the first. She is the type of author that you take her book and not just read it, but wrap it around you, and you become a part of her story. This book was no exception. I really liked the characters. Of course the setting, as in so many of her books, was another character.
I gave it four, (really wanted to give it four and a half), instead of five only because of the ending. Something happens at the end,that I think needed a little more story. I felt like maybe her editor told her to hurry up. Overall though, a really good read, and well worth the time.

...if you can make it that far. It took me - ready? - over a month to read Islands. I'd read a chapter, get bored and put it down, pick it back up and read a little more, get bored again...and I skipped ahead a lot to see if the story was ever going to pick up. It didn't.

Basically this is the story of how a pack of over-indulged snobs from Charleston grow into crotchety over-indulged snobs at a beach house. That's it - that's all that happens. People die, houses burn down. The story picks up a bit once Gaynelle comes on the scene but that happened long after I lost interest.

I should just post the spoiler and save you all the cost of the book.

Before I left for the holidays, I picked up a few books to read. I remembered one of my relatives highly suggested Siddons' "Colony". The store I was in did not have Colony so I picked up "Islands". While I love to read all kinds of books and relish the different writing styles, this book was an absolute torture. It's about a group of spoiled, completely self absorbed adults with no aim in life except to 'be'. The story is incredibly shallow, yet with an enormous amount of silly details that don't tie into anything within the story. All along while reading, I kept saying to mayself this has to get better, NOTHING can be this bad...folks, it NEVER does. Actually, I found it got progressively worse with each page turned. If, indeed, Siddon's other works were decent perhaps this one was simply written to ride on the coat tails of the previous successes for nothing else but quick release and quick $. Not worth folks. One of the worse reads I ever spent time on!

I have read most of Anne Rivers Siddons previous books and was looking forward to this one. I was extremely disappointed in the lack of character depth. I never felt any compassion for or real interest in any of the characters. Often I found myself saying, "this is ridiculous".

Actually I didn't think the ending was any worse then the rest of the book, which isn't saying much.

I bought the book to read and share with my daughter, another Siddons fan, but I told her not to waste her time. I recommend the other Siddons books, but not this one.

I've been a fan of Siddons' work for years. I've enjoyed most of her novels, loved some of them (Downtown, Outer Banks, Colony), and maybe once or twice just felt one of her books wasn't up to her usual standards (Low Country). In general I've looked forward to each new release, and enjoyed reading them. This is the first time I've ever actually been disgusted. I'm referring here only to the ending. The rest was quite good, not her best ever, but an interesting story with wonderful characters. Oh, I thought there were a few flaws - for example, the immediate acceptance of Anny into a tight knit group of lifelong friends, who were all a good 15 years older than she, seemed a bit unrealistic. There was a very brief mention of animosity between Anny and Fairlie at their first meeting. But suddenly, a page or two later, they are the best of friends, with no indication of how their relationship developed. Anny's romance with Lewis seemed a bit forced also. It felt like the author was quickly laying down the background so she could get to the main part of the story. I was actually willing to overlook that, since the rest of it was absorbing and often touching. But the ending! Ugh! I won't spoil it by saying what happens, but the last 15 pages completely negated everything else about the story, by turning it into a bad soap opera or a B-movie. I agree with another reviewer - it really seemed as if another person wrote the last chapter. It did not fit at all, with the story as a whole or with the characters. Worse than that, it was completely ludicrous. I am extremely, extremely disappointed.

I'm a huge fan of Anne Rivers Siddons, so I was extremely disappointed by this stuffy, snobby book.

The story of the aging, moneyed denizens of Charleston, South Carolina and Sullivan's Island left me cold. The characters in the book, who refer to themselves as the "Scrubs" since they are all in some way involved in the medical field, go off on occasional jaunts to South America to help the poor and the story's narrator, Annie Aiken, runs an outreach program. But you get the feeling that these activities are thrown in to the story only to justify the sumptuous descriptions of their homes, jewels, cars, boats, etc.

For me, the book was saved by those very descriptions of Charleston and the nearby islands, which I love, but know only as one of the "haltered and flip flop wearing tourists" that are so disdained by Annie.

By the time New Year's Eve rolls around and Annie is awestruck by one of her "oh so south of Broad" friends when he appears in a tuxedo, looking as though he was born to wear it ("how do they DO that?" she exclaims!) I had had enough of the Scrubs.

Anyone who is not fortunate enough to live in one of the antebellum mansions that line the Battery may find this book just as tedious as I did.

I'd been wanting to try Siddons, but maybe I choose the wrong book. I've started and finished 3 other books while trying to get going on this one. After 83 pages, I'm going to give it up and try another of her books.

It just feels like the characters are drifting. The descriptions setting the scene appeals, but Anny Butler seems so low-key that she is almost a nonentity.