What readers think of All He Ever Wanted, plus links to write your own review.

Author Anita Shreve is such a surprise! While none of her books — other than the "Fortune's Rocks" series — can be said to be similar to the others, this one is a true outlier. And while it took me a good while to get into the story, once I did, I was mesmerized by it.

Quite creatively written much in the language of a 19th century novel, this is the story of a marriage told as a retrospective in the first person from the husband's point of view. And that, by definition, means it is only half the story. Still, there are enough hints, clues, and revelations for the reader to discern how the wife feels—and it's nothing like her husband. It's 1899, and college professor Nicholas Van Tassel falls in love at first sight with Etna Bliss as he helps rescue her and her aunt from a hotel restaurant fire in the small New England town where they live. He is passionately besotted with her; she's obliviously indifferent. After making a startling bargain, they do marry, and bit by bit her secrets are revealed until he discovers secrets about both her past and present that he absolutely cannot abide. What Nicholas does to keep his wife is so shocking and so unsettling that the reverberations are felt for decades to come.

This is a deeply disturbing psychological study about the intense and overwhelming feelings of marital possession and the proximity to violence such possession—especially when it turns to obsession—engenders. It is also a poignant study of what it meant to be a married woman 100 years ago—and for some women even in today's world—and what one must necessarily surrender at the marriage altar in exchange for economic security.

This is a haunting, powerful story that will stay with me for some time.

I found "All He Ever Wanted" one of the best novels I have read for many years.

Her skilful plot with its almost endless suspense is outstanding.

Her use of language reminds me of Iris Murdoch with touches of Poe , Hawthorne and Thomas Hardy thrown in for good measure.

I do not know of any living English novelist of comparable quality , although my daughter prefers Fay Weldon.

This is the second book by Anita Shreve I've read--The Pilot's Wife, the first. This was a very different read, but truly amazing! I couldn't put it down. I found it haunting and compelling. My emotions were on a roller coaster with my sympathy and then loathing for Nicholas. I have recommended this book to all my friends in our reading group.

I have just finished reading "All He Ever Wanted" by Anita Shreve. I have enjoyed several of her novels and feel that this one matches all of the others in the quality of the writing and the depiction of character and emotion. I too would like to read Etna's story and wonder whether Anita has considered writing a sequel? The writing is concise and the feelings evoked are almost painful at times in their focus and accuracy. I think "Eden Close" is still my favourite novel to date.

I look forward to Anita's next book!

It has a very dramatic opening that snags the reader, then it drags for about 100 pages, all of which is setup for a dramatic, page-turner ending. Once you start the last 100 pages, it is difficult to put down. In the end the reader is left with the most poignant of human dilemmas--our great need for intimacy and human connection, coupled with an inability to find such fulfillment.

This is my first time reading any of Anita Shreve's book, and this story isn't half bad. I liked how she held back her plot.

"Weight of Water," "Strange Fits of Passion," and "Where or When" are wonderful, uniquely brilliant. "All He Ever Wanted" is a major disappointment - a #3, just because Anita's a great and unusual writer. But as Pat said, Etna's story would have been far more interesting, or even Clara's story!

I have just finished reading "All He Ever Wanted" and found the book rather disappointing. The theme has been done before, If you read "A Man of Property" by John Galsworthy and study the relationship between Soames and Irene, it is the same as between Van Tassel and Etna, two women who truly do not wish to wed the man that they do marry and how disappointing the relationships turn out. John Galsworthy does it better than Anita Shreve. "All He Ever Wanted" is well written and very easy to follow. I have rated this book "3" though it was disappointing, one does want to see what happens. Nicholas turns out to be a rather weak character and Anita a cold woman with secrets. You truly cannot like any of the characters.