Customer Reviews

Seven Moves

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book in a tiny little bookstore in northern Vermont, while frantically searching for a book to keep me occupied on a boat for 4 hours while my husband fished to his hearts content. I picked this wonderful treasure of a book quickly, and without really knowing what it was about. It was fantastic. This book is like talking to a very good friend over coffee. Cliche although it might be, Anshaw makes you laugh and cry all within the same paragraph. The relationship between the two lovers is so perfectly explained and heartwrenchingly understood by the way in which Anshaw writes easily and without pretense. Please read this. My four hours on that boat were more enjoyable than I ever would have thought possible, all because of "Seven Moves". Thank you for this book, and please hurry up and write again.

Anshaw's first book, Aquamarine, is one of my favorite books, so I picked up her second novel with trepidation. And sure enough, it's not as good as her first novel, but the complex relationship between the two lovers is fascinating. Anshaw takes the time to explore and examine all of her characters and therefore it is an in-depth look at relationships of all kinds. I liked how the ending left the reader hanging; to neatly tie the ending with a nice bow would have been disingenous at best.

I really enjoyed aquamarine so I figured that this book would e just as good. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

First of all, Carol Ashnaw writes in a present tense. That got on my nerves a little bit but I learned to put it aside. Second, the book is whiny, everything Christine goes through is so melodramatic. She seems like a sad excise for a human being. I thought the concept would be good but it just isn't. I don't identify with Christine and I don't sympathize with her.

Ashnaw tends to jump around a lot in this book, moving from flashback to present time, jumping form the subject of her father to her clients to her lover. It is rather confusing and I lost interest about half way through the book.

Christine's trip to Morocco isn't even explored as much as it could be. Ashnaw devotes one chapter of this book to something that is very crucial to the story. This happens many times in the book and I find that it takes away from the seriousness of it.

I do like the pace of the story, Ashnaw is good with creating a sense of how mcuh time has passed. I also like the tone of the story, it seems down to earth. Also this story is real-to-life. It could happen to anyone.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the book. Like I said, aquamarine is an excellent book. This one, not so good.

Very compelling until about 7/8th of the way through. The ending was very disappointing. Enought to take the time to say this.

Very compelling until about 7/8th of the way through. The ending was very disappointing. Enought to take the time to say this.

I picked up Seven Moves at my favorite book store in NYC and found a shaded bench in Washington Square Park and started to read. Within the course of a day, with some interruptions and the ride home, I finished it, wiping my eyes dry. There's the wonderful feeling of finding and being with the love of your life. There's the type of mystery of learning that you really might not know your partner. There's the hurt that she didn't trust you. There's a kind of failure for being blind to signals for help. Then there's the feeling of the inevitable and of moving on with your life knowing that each new experience will take you, regretfully, farther away from the present. Carol Anshaw does this in a mere 220 pages with well-crafted sentences, carefully using words that evoke the imagination and the heart. She takes you from the present to the past with flashbacks that reveal the strengh and weakness of relationships, exploring characters. One day after I finished Seven Moves, I picked it up and started reading it again, marking some of the most touching and insightful sentences I've every read.

Carol Anshaw's Seven Moves is an excellent and involving book that I recommend to everyone--and particularly to lesbians in search of first-class books that include us. Seven Moves can be emotionally difficult at times, as the book deals with the main character's frightening sense and reality of loss. It is also fascinating and different: the lesbian character, while completely real, is not what one might guess. Most importantly, Seven Moves stayed with me. I found myself rushing appointments to get home and go back to reading it. (Make sure to also check out Anshaw's brilliant book Aquamarine.) Thanks to Carol Anshaw, if you ever see this.

Actually I would give this book 2.5 stars. I had a hard time finsihing this work. This book is not a mystery. What is really amazing it that a local theater company here in Chicago is adapting this for the stage. When I saw a workshop of this work, I was intrigued and desperately wanted to read it, so I suggested for a Book Club I belong to. It starts off with a real bang and I enjoyed the relationship of Chris and Taylor. Taylor becomes Chris' obesession and a cataylst for her growth as she moves into another relationship with her ex Renny(after Taylor's mysterious disaperance)and the journey as she moves past both relationships. I really feel for the battle scarred Chris all to well.

So what bugged me about the book for its low rating?-Wordy, lacks dialogue to keep the reader moving and interested. At times I felt I was in swamp trying to move to the next page. I find myself going back and reading whole pages over and over again because I couldn't focus on it. (or was uninterested in what is going on to gain focus)Who wants to work that hard at leisure reading?

...

Will I read another work by this author? Yes, but not for a long, long time.

Still the big question is-"Do we ever really know the person we fall in love with?" The answer like this book, is as clear as the mud in the bottom of deep dark river.

I thought Seven Moves by Carol Anshaw was going to be an exciting, mysterious, psychological mystery.
It wasn't. I thought the main character Chris Snow would be enduring the dangers of the mid-east in her search for her missing photographer lover, Taylor.
She doesn't.

This book's goal is actually to attempt to examine the relationship between the two women.
However, it doesn't really succeed on any level, including that one.

The author never fully tells the reader what happened to Taylor, the woman who disappeared, but she comes close enough you can surmise the answer.

The thing I found the most disconcerting in reading this novel, was the fact the author chose to tell the entire book in the present verbal tense, which I found highly annoying, and more than a bit distracting.

There were times I wanted to put this book down and not return to it. It gave me fitful sleep.

Still, it is one of those books that will always stay with me and will change me and how I view the world.

When I read effective books I try to analyze how the writer does it. Carol Anshaw is a tough nut to crack. She writes effortlessly, but her words, characters, and dialogue pack a punch. I honestly can't figure out how she does it, but she is without a doubt one of this century's great writers.

Masterful. So real it hurts.