BookBrowse has a new look! Learn more about the update here.

Book summary and reviews of Body Surfing by Anita Shreve

Body Surfing by Anita Shreve

Body Surfing

A Novel

by Anita Shreve

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Apr 2007
    304 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing once again, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage. But when the Edwards' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt for herself is threatened.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Shreve's omniscience is asserted with such ease that it often feels like she's toying with her characters, but her control is masterful, particularly in the sure-handed and compassionate aftermath." - PW.

"The ever-skillful Shreve delivers yet another gripping read that will satisfy her many fans and earn her some new ones."- Booklist.

"Shreve's beautifully drawn tale of family and connection will leave readers feeling a bit slammed themselves: against the vagaries of life and the rocky shoals of love. A winner; highly recommended." - Library Journal.

"Not one of this crowd-pleasing author's best, but a solid, workmanlike B-plus effort. " - Kirkus.

This information about Body Surfing was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Jocelyn

Body Surfing
I've read other books by Anita Shreve, so I don't know how I missed Body Surfing.

Shreve has written a series of books that all take place in the same house on the New Hampshire coast. Body Surfing takes place in the present, while the other books were all set in the past.

The book is about Sydney, 29 years old, divorced once and widowed once. She is not sure where she is going with her life, so she takes a job of tutoring a high school junior, Julie, during the summer. Julie's family owns a seaside house in New Hampshire where they summer. Her brothers, Ben and Jeff, are grown, but visit their parents often. Sydney realizes that Julie is not a stellar student, and struggles with getting her ready to take the SAT's until she finds out that Julie is very artistic.

When Sydney meets Jeff and Ben they seem to have some rivalry between them, but there is more going on. Jeff sweeps her off her feet and Ben pulls away.

The book is an interesting examination of a family with some issues. Sydney's presence affects the family in different ways.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Anita Shreve Author Biography

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts. Her approimately 20 novels include The Pilot's Wife, The Weight of Water, Eden Close, Strange Fits of Passion, Where or When, and Resistance.

Anita Shreve began writing fiction while working as a high school teacher after graduating from Tufts University. Although one of her first published stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975, Shreve felt she couldn't make a living as a fiction writer so she became a journalist. She traveled to Africa and spent three years in Kenya, writing articles that appeared in magazines such as Quest, US, and Newsweek. Back in the United States, she turned to raising her children and writing freelance articles for magazines. Shreve later expanded two of these ...

... Full Biography
Link to Anita Shreve's Website

Other books by Anita Shreve at BookBrowse
  • The Pilot's Wife jacket
  • The Last Time They Met jacket

12 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Become a Member

Join BookBrowse today to start
discovering exceptional books!
Find Out More

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Briar Club
    The Briar Club
    by Kate Quinn
    Kate Quinn's novel The Briar Club opens with a murder on Thanksgiving Day, 1954. Police are on the ...
  • Book Jacket: Bury Your Gays
    Bury Your Gays
    by Chuck Tingle
    Chuck Tingle, for those who don't know, is the pseudonym of an eccentric writer best known for his ...
  • Book Jacket: Blue Ruin
    Blue Ruin
    by Hari Kunzru
    Like Red Pill and White Tears, the first two novels in Hari Kunzru's loosely connected Three-...
  • Book Jacket: A Gentleman and a Thief
    A Gentleman and a Thief
    by Dean Jobb
    In the Roaring Twenties—an era known for its flash and glamour as well as its gangsters and ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The 1619 Project
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
An impactful expansion of groundbreaking journalism, The 1619 Project offers a revealing vision of America's past and present.
Book Jacket
Lady Tan's Circle of Women
by Lisa See
Lisa See's latest historical novel, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
    by Bart Yates

    A saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

L T C O of the B

and be entered to win..

Win This Book
Win Smothermoss

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.

Enter

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.