Customer Reviews

Random Hearts

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Warren Adler started with a simple plot of an unfaithful husband and an another man's unfaithful wife. Simple start that starts slowly but draws you in so deep that you're trying to guide the remaining two characters- partly to make sure that they fall in love, and quickly. The two guilty parties have already been signed to the deep, so we're just pulling for the survivors as if they were destined to meet and fall in love and the basic plot and the other two characters had to be inserted and wraps around them for that effect. Read the book - forget the movie. Incidentially I've read the book 7 times - it's that good and different. Incidentially I'm a much older kid.

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.

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.

This new version of a 1980s book is prompted by the release of a current Harrison Ford movie based on the novel. In all ways the book is better than the motion picture. The book has style and believability. It was based on the true story of the Air Florida crash into the Potomac River. The movie has almost nothing to do with the original story. Roles are changed, names are changed, careers are changed, and the entire thrust of the book is altered almost beyond belief. Read the book. It is solid and professional. No loose ends are left and the story moves briskly to a satisfying end. First rate in every way. Enjoy the novel and do not confuse it with the movie.

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.

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.

The start of the paperback had me very interested, but halfway through, I began losing interest. The behavior of both surviving spouses did not seem logical, (such as the boy's mother leaving him for months, with his grandparents, with one or two phone calls with him.) I finished the book, but did not feel anything. I will feel regret that the pleasure of reading it is over, when an excellent book is finished. It may be a better movie than book.

It is the reader's misfortunate that all of the characters do not die in the plane crash that occurs at the beginning of the book. Pass this book up and read instead "The Pilot's Wife" by Anita Sheve.

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.

This is the only book that I had to read on my flight to Florida. I was trapped! I did not like or sympathize with any of the characters. Wait, yes I did, the dog. He was the only one who was real. Self centered garbage.