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The Shore

Sara Taylor (Goodreads Author)

3.55 · Rating details · 2,066 ratings · 408 reviews

Welcome to The Shore: a collection of small islands sticking out from the coast of Virginia into the Atlantic Ocean. Where clumps of evergreens meet wild ponies, oyster-shell roads, tumble-down houses, unwanted pregnancies, murder, storm-making and dark magic in the marshes. . .

Situated off the coast of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, the group of islands known as the Shore ha ...more

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Hardcover, 303 pages

Published May 26th 2015 by Hogarth (first published March 19th 2015)

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· 2,066 ratings · 408 reviews

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Jan 30, 2015 karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: free-from-work

i chose this book thinking it was going to have a Winesburg, Ohio vibe - a series of linked stories that make up a larger novel-feel in which desperate characters both love and resent their isolated hometowns and suffer beautifully.

and in some ways, that expectation panned out - structurally it holds up, although this is definitely more "novel" than "short story collection." although it is made up of short self-contained vignettes, they would lose something if this had been marketed as a collect ...more

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Mar 19, 2015 Angela M rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley-reviews

I don't read short stories as a rule and I know I am missing out on some really good writing but once in a while I take the leap especially if the stories are connected. That's the next best thing to a novel for me and this collection felt like a novel - sort of . It would have felt more so if the stories in this book were in chronological order ; then the changes in the narratives spanning over 250 years might not have been as confusing . However , the appearance of people mentioned in one stor I don't read short stories as a rule and I know I am missing out on some really good writing but once in a while I take the leap especially if the stories are connected. That's the next best thing to a novel for me and this collection felt like a novel - sort of . It would have felt more so if the stories in this book were in chronological order ; then the changes in the narratives spanning over 250 years might not have been as confusing . However , the appearance of people mentioned in one story in another story which takes places years or a century before was a clever mechanism that hooked me . The structure of the book made for a little work to piece things together and several times I had to move back and forth between stories to confirm the
link . It does however come full circle in a way with the character of Chloe from the first disturbingly and devastatingly sad story. There are many characters in the these stories, but from beginning to end , it was Chloe's story for me .

I'm not sure there's an ounce of joy anywhere in this book with maybe the exception of the last pages. If there was any earlier I surely missed it among the depressing, sad lives of the people that inhabit The Shore - consisting of three islands off the coast of Virginia and spanning the years 1876 - 2043. One finds brutal realities here - revenge murders , meth and physical abuse as wives and children are beaten and women are raped . There's black magic , healing , and a recurring theme of unplanned , unwanted pregnancies . Pretty heavy duty stuff , but if you can go on after the reading the first chapter, which gave me pause , you'll be rewarded with descriptive writing taking you into the desolate places in the lives of these characters , with the creativity of the storytelling.

This is not for the faint of heart . It's dark and brutal but I can't help but feel that there is writing here worthy of our attention and if you make it through to the ending chapters you might like I did , find a an ounce of hope .

Thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley . ...more

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May 31, 2016 Peter Boyle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: David Mitchell fans

"It’s a little house, our house, one room downstairs and two rooms upstairs and a porch for each, and according to the phone company and the electric company and the taxman it doesn’t exist."

The Shore is an isolated, run-down collection of islands off the coast of Virginia, populated with wild horses, witch-doctors and chicken factories. It has been home to generations of strong-willed, determined women and their haunting stories are told in this remarkable novel. From Medora, the illegitimate "It’s a little house, our house, one room downstairs and two rooms upstairs and a porch for each, and according to the phone company and the electric company and the taxman it doesn’t exist."

The Shore is an isolated, run-down collection of islands off the coast of Virginia, populated with wild horses, witch-doctors and chicken factories. It has been home to generations of strong-willed, determined women and their haunting stories are told in this remarkable novel. From Medora, the illegitimate daughter of a white land-owner, to Chloe, a resourceful thirteen-year-old girl with no mother and a meth-addicted father, to Tamara who is doing her damnedest to become pregnant during a deadly plague - these characters all have a heavy burden to bear. Oppressed by poverty, disease and abusive men, their lives have never been easy. But there's one thing they all have in common, a dogged determination to rise above it all.

What strikes me most about this assured debut is its fearless ambition. Taylor weaves the tales of these unforgettable characters so effortlessly. I found myself eagerly flipping back and forth to decipher the connections - what became of the mysterious Grandpa Tom, the identity of Chloe's real father, how the Lumsdens came by their enormous wealth. Taylor seamlessly slips between genres with each memorable chapter - from Southern Gothic to magic realism and even sci-fi in a bleakly imagined post-apocalyptic future. This has earned comparisons to the work of David Mitchell - but then I guess every novel that tries the interconnected stories approach gets the Cloud Atlas tag.

One small niggle is that certain intriguing elements of the story are only touched upon and never revisited. For example, some characters appear to have the ability to control the weather. Is this a supernatural ability or all in their heads? I'd love to have found out more. And the sheer size of the cast can be tough to keep track of at times. But these are minor complaints - Taylor's terrific writing is what shines through. It is a powerful exploration of womanhood and the lengths required to survive a cruel, misogynistic world. It also has one of the best first chapters I have ever read. A wonderful jigsaw puzzle of a book from an exciting new voice. ...more

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Mar 03, 2015 ☮Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-stories, netgalley, read-in-2015, giveaways-librarything

Southern grit lit at its best. If you like generations of a very disturbed and disturbing family in your reading selections, this fits the bill. Murder, mayhem, mysticism, meth heads, and malevolence fill the chapters.

The lay-out of the chapters, really interconnected vignettes, would be what I first disliked and then ended up much appreciating by the end. This book makes your brain work! Something like 20 characters are introduced at different points in their lives, not chronologically and with ...more

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Nov 02, 2014 Blair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-release, past-and-present, short-stories, read-on-kindle, netgalley, womens-prize, first-novels

Rarely do I finish a book and have so little to say about it. I enjoyed The Shore, and I wanted to write an in-depth review, but I've been struggling for days with what I have to say and even what I remember about the story. The way I felt about this reminds me of the way I felt about Hannah Kent's Burial Rites , which was published (and which I read) in 2013: both books gathered a word-of-mouth buzz about them prior to publication, receiving favourable reviews and drawing comparisons to the Rarely do I finish a book and have so little to say about it. I enjoyed The Shore, and I wanted to write an in-depth review, but I've been struggling for days with what I have to say and even what I remember about the story. The way I felt about this reminds me of the way I felt about Hannah Kent's Burial Rites , which was published (and which I read) in 2013: both books gathered a word-of-mouth buzz about them prior to publication, receiving favourable reviews and drawing comparisons to the work of established literary authors; both have been nominated for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. But both also turned out to be quick, light and easy reads, actually less complicated and challenging than a lot of genre fiction, and both proved to be almost instantly forgettable.

The Shore is a collection of interlinked short stories, all of them set on the titular Shore, an arid archipelago of three islands somewhere off the coast of the Southern state of Virginia. That the stories focus on different characters and take place in different time periods - including the future - has led to the book being likened to the novels of David Mitchell. Taylor's work differs from Mitchell's in one crucial respect: it lacks the variety of voices and literary styles that made Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas what they were (I'm pretending The Bone Clocks doesn't exist). This lack of diversity is both a problem (it means the stories, which often have the same rough themes, seem too alike) and an asset (it makes the book feel more coherent as a novel, and avoids, for the most part, making it feel gimmicky).

There are a couple of notable deviations, though. The most obvious is the final chapter, set in 2143, which uses a sort of 'futurespeak' that seems very familiar and felt like a rip of the style employed by Mitchell in the future-set sections of Cloud Atlas. If not Cloud Atlas, then I have definitely read something extremely similar in another book. It's not original and it's kind of lazy, but what saves it is the truly touching story lurking beneath the daft language. In general, the story is kept afloat by engaging characters, strong and intriguing openings to each of the chapters, and the identity the Shore itself acquires: characterful and close to magical.

The Shore has some running themes: though some of the main characters are male, the book concentrates mainly on 'the female experience' and secondly on sexual politics. (One of the better examples of the latter is that, in a tongue-in-cheek twist on the epidemic-dystopia formula, it's a sexually transmitted disease that brings about the ruin of humanity.) I did sometimes find all of this a bit tiresome. There's a recurring portrayal of women as inherently obsessed with motherhood and familial bonds, which I struggled to relate to, and there were times when the book's relentless emphasis on 'women' (I don't mean women as characters but more the idea of women) felt overwrought.

This doesn't sound like a four-star review, does it? The truth is that I did very much enjoy reading this book and don't have any concrete reason to rate it lower. It's just more of a casually enjoyable read than anything else; it has some dark moments, but these are given a sort of ambient gloss not necessarily by the story, but by the fact that the book is so easily readable and - perhaps as a result of the short-story format - never feels like it gets very deep into any analysis of its characters. ...more

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Dec 31, 2014 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-via-netgalley, second-person, dystopian, dirty-realism, linked-short-stories, historical-fiction, best-of-2015

(Nearly 4.5) Gritty and virtuosic, this novel-in-13-stories imagines 250 years of history on a set of islands off the coast of Virginia. As a Maryland native, I think of Chincoteague and Assateague as vacation destinations, but Taylor definitely focuses on their dark side here: industrial-scale chicken farms, unwanted pregnancies, domestic violence, bootleg liquor, gang rape, murders and meth labs. There’s a core of narratives set in the 1980s–90s that could easily form a novel on their own, but (Nearly 4.5) Gritty and virtuosic, this novel-in-13-stories imagines 250 years of history on a set of islands off the coast of Virginia. As a Maryland native, I think of Chincoteague and Assateague as vacation destinations, but Taylor definitely focuses on their dark side here: industrial-scale chicken farms, unwanted pregnancies, domestic violence, bootleg liquor, gang rape, murders and meth labs. There’s a core of narratives set in the 1980s–90s that could easily form a novel on their own, but these are interspersed with vignettes stretching from 1876 to 2143. Dirty realism thus shares space with historical fiction and dystopia, while first-person narration (about one-third) trades off with third-person (nearly two-thirds) and one instance of the second person (“Boys”).

My favorite of the stories were the nineteenth-century ones about Medora, a half-Native American healer. These have a faint flavor of Wide Sargasso Sea, while there are traces of Ron Rash and David Vann in the rest. Taylor has proven here that she can do it all: contemporary realism, period research, even post-apocalyptic. Each of those genres could have spawned an entire book, but when crammed together they seem a bit show-offy, or like Taylor couldn’t make up her mind what she wanted the book to be. I also thought the 1980s–90s chapters were repetitive, with young women getting knocked up by dubious boyfriends.

Is The Shore short stories or a novel? That’s a question I’m still asking myself. I’ve heard Taylor’s approach compared to David Mitchell’s in Cloud Atlas or The Bone Clocks, but I haven’t read either (anyone who has, feel free to let me know how Taylor measures up). The compromise position says it’s linked short stories (like Snow in May by Kseniya Melnik, Unforgettable by Paulette Alden, or Archangel by Andrea Barrett), with characters and/or their ancestors/descendants showing up in later chapters. I think in the end I would have preferred a clearer choice: either a chronological novel or a straight set of short stories.

Still, there’s no denying that Taylor can write, and I loved tracing the history of some dying communities that are more than just names to me. Every region needs a literary chronicler, and I reckon Taylor is it for the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia’s islands. This was certainly a deserving entry on the 2015 Baileys Prize longlist. Next time, though, I hope she’ll commit to one genre or style. ...more

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Aug 09, 2015 reading is my hustle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-southern, fiction-intense-bleak, fiction, fiction-science-fiction

Oh, man. It sucks to be poor. And generational poverty? Sucks even more. These interconnected stories are bleak and compelling. Bloodlines are blurred, violence is certain, and the shore is where it all transpires.

Grit-lit.
You've been warned. ...more

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Mar 24, 2015 Jill rated it it was amazing

There are many characters that populate this very assured debut novel, but none of them is more enduring and unforgettable than the shore itself. Within these chapters, characters ebb and flow like the ocean itself, plunging in head first to reveal themselves to the reader and then receding to safe (or not so safe) shore.

Indeed, the structure of the book follows this ebb and flow, starting in current times, withdrawing to 1876, advancing to a horrific dystopian future in 2143, introducing differ There are many characters that populate this very assured debut novel, but none of them is more enduring and unforgettable than the shore itself. Within these chapters, characters ebb and flow like the ocean itself, plunging in head first to reveal themselves to the reader and then receding to safe (or not so safe) shore.

Indeed, the structure of the book follows this ebb and flow, starting in current times, withdrawing to 1876, advancing to a horrific dystopian future in 2143, introducing different “players” almost willy-nilly. If you enjoy linear books, this is not a novel for you. However, if you have a high tolerance for books that flow seamlessly back and forth before revealing all their secrets, you’re going to love this one.

Ms. Taylor writes, “The Shore is flat as a fried egg; on a clear day from one upstairs porch it feels like you can see into tomorrow, and usually you can just about see the smart smear that is Chincoteague Island off to the northeast. We are one of three islands, off the coast of Virginia and just south of Maryland, trailing out into the Atlantic Ocean like someone’s dripped paint.”

The island comes alive under Ms. Taylor’s deft hand: the smell of the salt water, the crabs crawling up the shore, the noxious smell of Perdue chicken from the killing factory. All the while, the author integrates different styles and tenses: from historical to suspenseful, from southern-gothic to dystopian, from fantastical to conventional. There’s also a wisp of feminism philosophy contained within: many of these woman are fighting for survival and self-actualization and in one case and a few have special skills such as herb doctoring and controlling the weather. As the novel progresses, clues are dropped how all these stories link and a more universal theme is introduced.

One of the reasons I chose The Shore is that it was compared to David Mitchell and Jennifer Egan’s works. I’m a fan of both. However, I did not really see the connection to either, except for the more experimental form of storytelling. If I had to compare to another author, it would be Flannery O’Connor with a touch of Alice Hoffman. Sara Taylor knows how to tell a story, to rev up the reader’s interest, and importantly, she knows how to sock the reader right between the eyes with some of her story endings.

It’s an imaginative novel, inventive, creative, and beautifully controlled and paced by the author. By the third or fourth chapter, I was willing to suspend belief and let Sara Taylor take me anywhere she chose to go.
...more

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Dec 01, 2016 boogenhagen rated it liked it

So every once in a while I take myself out of HPlandia and read what various acquaintances refer to as a "real" book - like literature even.

This one is interesting in a how bleak and sad and horrible can we make things kinda way. The writing is good. The various interconnected stories were mostly well done, but srsly peeps, except for the very end story - which is set after an epic biological apocalypse and people are horribly mutated-the sheer unrelenting misery of this book makes me want to r ...more

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Jun 22, 2019 Lotte rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-read, ge-historical-fiction, a-short-fiction, t-women-misbehaving, 2015-release, reviewed, ge-magical-realism, t-multigenerational, a-fiction

3.5/5. The Shore by Sara Taylor is a book that’s hard to categorize. It’s a cross between a short story collection and a novel and follows the lives of different members of a large family living on a collection of small islands on the coast of Virginia. The stories jump from branch to branch of a vast family tree in a nonlinear timeline (the first chapter is set in 1995, the second one in 1933, and so forth). These different perspectives don’t shy away from depicting quite harsh realities as mos ...more

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Aug 31, 2015 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, around-the-usa, read2015, reviewcopy, location-usa-virginia

I received a copy of this audiobook from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.

I was quickly pulled in to this book chronicling multiple generations in the shore region of rural Virginia. Cheyenne bloodlines, herbal magic, resiliency - these themes follow throughout. I think I was most partial to the present-day stories with people having to choose between dealing drugs or picking up another job at the three chicken factory farms nearby.

I was less thrilled, and surprised by, the ...more

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Jan 11, 2015 Julianne (Outlandish Lit) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks, arc-reviewers-copy, favorites, own, 2015-releases

But like actually 4.5.

The first chapter of this book absolutely blew me away and the rest of the book did not disappoint. If you're at all interested in dark, gritty Southern Gothic literature, or perhaps think you could be but have been put off by how male-dominated those stories tend to be, grab this immediately. And if you want a little dose of magical realism, too, you're in the right place. I waited a couple weeks to read this after acquiring it, and I regret it.

The Shore is an interesting But like actually 4.5.

The first chapter of this book absolutely blew me away and the rest of the book did not disappoint. If you're at all interested in dark, gritty Southern Gothic literature, or perhaps think you could be but have been put off by how male-dominated those stories tend to be, grab this immediately. And if you want a little dose of magical realism, too, you're in the right place. I waited a couple weeks to read this after acquiring it, and I regret it.

The Shore is an interesting book, in that each chapter focuses on a different character (though sometimes narrators recur) and each chapter jumps to a different year, sometimes up to 100 years in difference. But the common thread is that they all focus on families, and particularly the tough and fascinating women, who inhabit a group of islands off the shore of Virginia. And boy does Sara Taylor know how to evoke a sense of place. The marshland these families have populated for years is both desolate and enchanting. Taylor's writing is absolutely stunning and I loved just soaking in how real and rich her descriptions were.

Taylor is also extraordinary at writing characters. Each one was intriguing and different. Sometimes at the beginning of a story, you had no idea who you were watching, but you could begin to recognize people from earlier just based on how they felt. One character that was vaguely mentioned in one story could be the main character of the next one. It was a lot of fun taking notes and trying to keep track of how all these people were related, because they all were in some way, and it added a layer of depth and interaction that many books don't achieve.

It's worth noting that this book is really intense. Beautiful, but intense, and it goes to very dark places. Anything that you imagine might happen in a rural, isolated, run-down set of island towns does. There's violence, crime, drugs, domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, and rape. I think all of it was important to read and it doesn't feel gratuitous, but it is worth mentioning.

I loved this book. Well, I loved all but the last chapter of this book, which felt unnecessary. But I'm fully behind every other chapter. Even if you think you don't need to read this book, you do. I'm beyond excited to see what Sara Taylor does in the future.

Full review: http://outlandishlit.blogspot.com/201... ...more

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Apr 15, 2016 Jeanette rated it it was ok

The beginning read well and grabbed Chloe's personality and context of her life. But I am afraid I have to be the odd woman out again on this one.

The continuity was not there. Period.

The pictorial family charting at the beginning non-withstanding.

The place feel existed, just. But my enjoyment in the read barely made the two.

And this time, I could actually detail 4 or 5 basic reasons why. But I won't, because the mode and the writing style are exactly into current endemic forms. And they are pop The beginning read well and grabbed Chloe's personality and context of her life. But I am afraid I have to be the odd woman out again on this one.

The continuity was not there. Period.

The pictorial family charting at the beginning non-withstanding.

The place feel existed, just. But my enjoyment in the read barely made the two.

And this time, I could actually detail 4 or 5 basic reasons why. But I won't, because the mode and the writing style are exactly into current endemic forms. And they are popular, so I'd be typing for naught. This book also by focusing so much on the female family and community members as "thought narrators"- it held vast cross over to current chick lit. But far darker and creepier.

This bordered grit without being genuine about it. That's not my prime disconnect though. Because I can actually tolerate and sometimes appreciate Grit. Lit.

It was the tone observance vs actions cited that did me in eventually. I had to force myself to read the last third of this book. I did. But my enjoyment by that point was a zero.

Violence, abuse, domestic assaults through the centuries, lust called love- that's just the tip of the iceberg to why these characters got to be jail bait cartoon characters. They certainly did to me.

Role models toward work and positive purposes? Starting a baby within a secure marriage for support and/or mere survival? Financial responsibility to feeding your own young? I would say that most humans consider these fairly prime. And in most cultures.

The outliers (not more than two characters in this entire book of dozens was other than an "outlier" psychologically) of homicide, torture, abuse, excuses, addiction, abandonment and lack of reciprocal "affect" for others beyond a self-defense shield for themselves within THE SHORE? Honestly, I doubt that they (human habitation) would have lasted the approximately 200 year span with these completely selfish self-serving people to this degree. In fact, by the end- I believe we are down to very few in number. Surprise, surprise!

Fiction to sell. YES this is! Writing style is adequate. Absolutely. Subject matter and form is just hitting 2 star. And hit is the right word for this book. Felony and human slave type usage by emotional cretins is constant so I guess that means it is not "boring"- so the happening crowd will most likely love it. Not I. Children as fodder, and animals even have it worse. Told in a tra-la-la style. ...more

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Apr 30, 2015 Ellie M rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, netgalley, kindle, 2015-grc, fiction

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for this ARC.

The Shore tells the stories of islanders living off the coast of Virginia. Many of the individuals described escape to the islands because they don't want to be found. The stories are all connected, although not told in chronological order. I didn't mind the fact that there were jumps from past to present, and future, although I enjoyed the future story the least and found it the most far fetched. I don't think though it detracted from my enjoymen ...more

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May 16, 2020 gorecki rated it liked it · review of another edition

2.5 - a wildly imaginative collection of interwoven stories, full of action and characters, but slightly too much for my personal taste

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Feb 02, 2015 Book Riot Community added it

Shelves: literary-fiction

The shore in question is the collective name for an ellipses of islands dotted off the Virginian coast. It is a place of magic, drug addiction, domestic abuse, doomed love, illicit distilleries, wild ponies, and shell-dappled roads. Treating time as a game of hopscotch, Sara Taylor’s debut novel traces the ebb and flow of the islands’ families over several centuries and into an imagined future. It’s an accomplished balancing act, especially for a debut novel. An incidental character in one chapt ...more

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Apr 06, 2015 Charlotte Dann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, type-fiction, form-paperback, type-short-stories

It took some time but I really enjoyed this book. It was quiet, powerful, and affecting. Lots of different things going on, and I for one loved the conclusion. Watch my video here. ...more

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Jun 07, 2016 Sue rated it it was amazing

Shelves: postal-book-club

As we wrap up another Postal Book Club round, it's safe to reveal some of the selections we've read since last summer. The Shore was my pick for our group, so naturally, I loved it.

Many reviews call The Shore a collection of connected stories, but, for me, it was most definitely a novel. The main character is the setting itself, a group of small islands in the Chesapeake Bay, that come alive through Taylor’s exquisite language and imagery, and offer solace and heartache to the generations of ch As we wrap up another Postal Book Club round, it's safe to reveal some of the selections we've read since last summer. The Shore was my pick for our group, so naturally, I loved it.

Many reviews call The Shore a collection of connected stories, but, for me, it was most definitely a novel. The main character is the setting itself, a group of small islands in the Chesapeake Bay, that come alive through Taylor’s exquisite language and imagery, and offer solace and heartache to the generations of characters who live there, try to leave, and desperately return time and time again. The characters are the patchwork; The Shore is the quilt, holding them all together, intricately bound to a shared beauty, and at times, a shared horror - nothing without each other.

I loved the span of the book, stretching over a period of 250 years, and through 7 generations of islanders. I was dazzled by the way the novel kaleidoscopes back and forth through time as the narration shifts from 1st person, through 2nd and 3rd and back again. I did have to spend a fair bit of time flipping back to the family tree at the beginning of each chapter to identify who was being described, but somehow that only added to my enjoyment. I loved how the stories slowly filled out, and how a glimpse of a fascinating character in one chapter opened up to their whole story in another. In this way, the book reminded me a bit of Station Eleven.

While the book covers a lot of time, it also covers a lot of genres. There’s a bit of historical fiction, some magical realism, a little sci-fi (maybe even some cli-fi), contemporary fiction and some dystopian fiction for good measure. The strong, clear narrative voice keeps these shifts from being unwieldy. Moreover, what binds the stories and chapters is the humanity and compassion that runs strong and deep throughout, and characters so fully realized, I still wonder about them now.

I enjoyed Taylor’s exploration of the extent to which where we come from, and who we come from, shapes our identity, and the identity of those who come after us. The dark themes in the novel: generational poverty, abuse, and addiction, are tempered by the yearning and tenacity of the characters who strive for more, yet remain loyal to their people and their place in the world.

This book has everything I could want in a novel: gorgeous writing, vivid imagery, a unique and atmospheric setting, slow burning suspense, and wonderful characters, with both beauty and darkness in equal measure. Highly recommended! ...more

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Jan 20, 2015 Lolly K Dandeneau rated it really liked it

This collection is webbed together, following closely knit characters. From the first story (which is my favorite) I realized that I was going to be riveted and maybe horrified by the actions within. It does verge on the strange as we head into the future, but it fits. The writing is beautiful and I can't wait for a novel by Taylor. In honesty, this collection reads like a novel because being the shore, many are relatives or friends that touch each other throughout the ages, some inappropriately ...more

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Mar 25, 2015 Emma rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

This started off really good. It is a novel but almost feels like a series of short stories, every chapter tells a stand alone story about a female member of one family. I think this is the type of book you need to read more than once to fully understand what is going on, there is a family tree at the front of the book which helps, however flicking back and forth through the ebook version was slightly difficult.

The book is sort of a historical/ modern day ...more

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Sep 30, 2019 Ruth P rated it it was ok

I think I am on a different planet from the readers who raged about how mesmerising and powerful this book is!
For me...yawnsville

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Apr 26, 2016 Ian Mond rated it it was amazing

The Shore is a début novel from Sara Taylor but you wouldn’t know it because the writing is so assured in tone and structure. The book is set on a small group of islands off the coast of Virginia and covers a three hundred year period that focuses on two lines of descendants stemming from Medora – half white, half Native American who was born on the islands in the mid 19th Century. The novel bounces around in time, between the mid 1990s, to the late 1800s, to the early 20th Century, to a point 1 The Shore is a début novel from Sara Taylor but you wouldn’t know it because the writing is so assured in tone and structure. The book is set on a small group of islands off the coast of Virginia and covers a three hundred year period that focuses on two lines of descendants stemming from Medora – half white, half Native American who was born on the islands in the mid 19th Century. The novel bounces around in time, between the mid 1990s, to the late 1800s, to the early 20th Century, to a point 120 years from now. As a result, there’s a strong mosaic flavour to the structure as we are introduced to a number of Medora’s descendants.

The opening chapter sets the tone of the novel, and it’s anything but twee or bucolic. 13-year-old Chloë – Medora’s great, great, great grand-daughter – is forced to protect her younger sister Chloe from their drug abusing and violent father after their mother disappeared to parts unknown. It’s a gut wrenching piece of writing, with an ending that’s both powerful and upsetting and yet with a great deal of sensitivity. And it’s only the beginning. Starting with Medora’s awful treatment at the hand of her father and first husband, this is a book that takes a frank look at the pain men inflict on women. And while some of the women in this book are able to stand strong against the sexual abuse and violence – Chloe and Medora are cases in point – this isn’t always the case and it’s all the more tragic as a result.

The book also explores a family’s connection to the land – especially with regard to the environment and a respect for the natural order. The speculative element is that Medora’s second husband (or at least that side of the family) have the ability to manipulate weather. Bring rain, deflect hurricanes, control storms. But they use that power carefully, with great respect, and as a consequence gain insight into what’s coming for humanity. And it ain’t good. In the 2030s a sexual disease emerges that kills off most of the planet and leads to mutations for a number of the babies that are born afterwards. The Lumsden’s – the side of Medora’s descendants that have power over weather – plan for the plague, and occupy a small island not connected to the mainland. The upshot is that 100 years after the plague hits, the descendants live a relative peaceful, simple life. In fact the last story of the collection is in complete contrast to the opening, not just because it’s set in 22nd Century, but because it’s about hope and love, rather than violence and pain.

The novel’s one minor stutter is the introduction of the plague. While I understand that out of control plagues are simply reflective of the author’s concern for the environment and our general mistreatment of the natural world, as a plot device it’s lazy. It’s not to say that a plague won’t come around and wipe us out, but that it’s now being used as science fiction short hand to get around the need for a more nuanced and thought out future. However, considering everyone does it, and given the chapter that deals with the plague would make for a magnificent piece of horror short fiction, I can forgive Taylor this stumble.

Confronting and powerful and sensitive and assured – the way Taylor’s handle so many voices is wow-tastic – The Shore is a truly fantastic novel. ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Thom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Strong writing, spread over 13 chapters with 11 narrators. The individual chapters tell the story of a family line over 280 years. A few have hints of magic, some are violent, and the majority describe strong women and a connection with this particular place on the coast of Virginia.

Most of the chapters are also stories that can stand alone, and this has been described as a short story collection. A reader could easily pick up the book and read just one to get a feel for the author's voice. The ...more

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Feb 06, 2015 Katie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, netgalley

Firstly, this book contains a great deal of emotional and sexual abuse so just want to put out a trigger warning.
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I really did enjoy this debut novel by Sara Taylor, but it did take me a while to really get in to it. Looking back however, this may have something to do with the fact that I was reading it via Kindle.

I would definitely say that it is closer to a short story collection - rather than a novel - and I found no issues with dipping in and out, reading a chapter or two at a time. Although ...more

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Mar 26, 2015 David Reviews rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a seriously good book that demands your full attention. You will be rewarded with pages of mesmerising stories and memorable characters. It blew me away and it will certainly end up being one of my favourite books of 2015.

Each chapter is a separate story which is intricately linked, by location, and to members of two families. After the first chapter I was hooked and found myself taking deep breaths and filled with anticipation at the start of each new chapter. The storytelling is delici ...more

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May 05, 2015 Laurel-Rain rated it liked it

In the synopsis, we learn that The Shore is a group of small islands in the Chesapeake Bay, just off the coast of Virginia, with...clumps of evergreens, wild ponies, oyster-shell roads, tumble-down houses, unwanted pregnancies, murder, and dark magic in the marshes. Sanctuary to some but nightmare to others, it's a place that generations of families both wealthy and destitute have inhabited, fled, and returned to for hundreds of years.

So the story begins, and we are first introduced to two young ...more

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Jun 19, 2016 fromcouchtomoon rated it it was amazing

A curious delight from this year's Kitschies newbie list that gently SFnalizes the Virginia seashore over several generations of two families on through to near-future gentle apocalypse. Where magic realism meets Mason Dixon South, there's a tinge of what's maybe coastal Appalachia culture (?) that makes this curiouser and curiouser. With strong writing swirling with conflict, historic momentum, and minor magicks, perhaps the only objectionable piece is the too-often depiction of Native American ...more

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Apr 20, 2015 Shaina rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, arc

Original review here: http://www.shainareads.com/2015/05/th...

Obligatory disclaimer goes here: I received The Shore from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks so much to Hogarth of Crown Publishing Group for giving me the chance to read it!

The first thing you need to know about The Shore is that the setting is one of the most important characters in the story. This is no small feat, as throughout its 300+ pages, we meet more than two dozen others, nearly all of them loosely connecte Original review here: http://www.shainareads.com/2015/05/th...

Obligatory disclaimer goes here: I received The Shore from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks so much to Hogarth of Crown Publishing Group for giving me the chance to read it!

The first thing you need to know about The Shore is that the setting is one of the most important characters in the story. This is no small feat, as throughout its 300+ pages, we meet more than two dozen others, nearly all of them loosely connected to one of two families that have called this collection of islands off the coast of Virginia home since (at least) the early nineteenth century.

The reader watches these families quite literally come alive over a series of stories spanning more than two centuries. Almost every vignette has a different narrator, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the book was trying to puzzle out how all of these people fit together. (Physical ARCs and the finished product should be coming with family trees, but my copy didn't have one. I actually think I prefer it this way, as it allowed the story to unfold more naturally.) The Shore likewise undergoes a metamorphosis from a tourist-filled beach destination to a dilapidated ghost town to... something else entirely.

While it has its moments of charm, this is by no means a light book. Taylor makes no bones about sprinkling her novel liberally with domestic, sexual and child abuse, addiction of various kinds, an extended gang rape and a couple of gruesome murders. I knew this book would be dark going in, but I would have appreciated someone tipping me off about some of the more graphic scenes. Consider this the warning I didn't get!

While that list sounds gratuitous, it didn't feel that way while reading. The Shore is the definition of a rural wasteland; its residents farm and fish and work at the chicken plants that spew what smells like "chicken soup, and a whole lot like dog food, with the inside of a molding coop mixed in" (Loc 258). Not until the very end—a vignette set 150 years in the future—do we get any real sense of hope for what comes next. I'm reminded of another collection of stories I read, The Uncanny Valley by Gregory Miller; one of the characters said that the valley "has a way of keeping its own where they are." The Shore likewise holds its own in a clenched fist, and it's only natural that they would turn against each other (and themselves) to survive.

And yet, like most good Southern folk, many of the Shore's children find a sense of pride in where they come from:

"Going home, at the end of a day of shopping or visiting or reporting to the draft, I used to imagine I was King Arthur going to Avalon, and none of the city mess could follow me. It wasn't just the trip away in reverse. The stink of the city faded and that ribbon of life resolved magically out of the haze on the water. It was all soft and green, and no one could tell me the Shore wasn't the most beautiful place on the face of God's earth." - Loc. 2120-2126, The Shore

If you're looking for a generation-spanning story that oozes Southern atmosphere—and don't mind a little bit of magical realism and a whole lot of bleakness thrown in for good measure—The Shore is your book.

The Shore will be available for purchase on May 26. ...more

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Mar 23, 2015 Taryn rated it really liked it

The Shore takes place on a set of small islands off the coast of Virginia, a place I’ve never been and frankly didn’t know existed. However, the destitute and desperate characters could have stepped right off the front porches of places I’m more intimately familiar with. We may not have an ocean nearby, but there’s no shortage of addiction, abuse, and family secrets in rural Kansas. So although the title of Taylor’s novel may imply that her setting is somehow singular, set apart, if you have any The Shore takes place on a set of small islands off the coast of Virginia, a place I’ve never been and frankly didn’t know existed. However, the destitute and desperate characters could have stepped right off the front porches of places I’m more intimately familiar with. We may not have an ocean nearby, but there’s no shortage of addiction, abuse, and family secrets in rural Kansas. So although the title of Taylor’s novel may imply that her setting is somehow singular, set apart, if you have any familiarity with impoverished American communities, you’ll experience the bright spark of recognition even if you’ve never laid eyes on the Virginia coastline.

On paper, this book doesn’t sound like one I’d rush to pick up. Reading about people with hard lives is less and less appealing the older I get. In my younger years, it was exciting to read about tragedy and misfortune because I hadn’t experienced any. It gave a voyeuristic thrill. These days, my empathy dial has been turned up to 11, and I have to be careful what I let into my head. It’s not worth it to me to walk around weighted down by fictional people’s pain.

But sometimes authors get the tone of tragedy exactly right, and this is one of those times. None of Taylor’s characters is a helpless victim; they’re tenacious, and more than a little twisted. Taylor focuses primarily on the women of the Shore, but they’re far from timid damsels wasting away in a tower. They may have been treated brutally, but you can bet they’re going to be brutal right back. And what makes them even more terrifying is they have no problem waiting til the time is right to exact their revenge.

What really put The Shore over the top for me was the structure. It’s not a novel, and it’s not a collection of short stories. It’s a set of linked, overlapping chapters that, though each one is a discrete, satisfying piece on its own, when read together makes a chillingly effective whole. They jump around in time—in one story, you might read about a girl putting a stop to her father’s abuse (I won’t say exactly how), and in another you meet her mother and discover what led to that critical moment. It pained me every time I had to stop reading—I couldn’t wait to find out what bizarreness would come out of Taylor’s mind next.

The Shore is gritty, violent, and absolutely riveting. Sara Taylor is definitely going on my “authors to watch” list.

With regards to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy. On sale today, May 26!

More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com ...more

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Jun 28, 2015 Kara rated it it was amazing

A young girl buys chicken necks to use as crab bait and returns to her dilapidated home and abusive father to try to scrape together enough food for dinner. From there, the vibrant and often bloody world of The Shore only gets bigger, following several characters across centuries in interconnected short stories that serve as chapters. The stories range from the 1800s to the distant future, from ordinary to downright bizarre. Yet life in the Shore remains oddly the same even through this vast sco A young girl buys chicken necks to use as crab bait and returns to her dilapidated home and abusive father to try to scrape together enough food for dinner. From there, the vibrant and often bloody world of The Shore only gets bigger, following several characters across centuries in interconnected short stories that serve as chapters. The stories range from the 1800s to the distant future, from ordinary to downright bizarre. Yet life in the Shore remains oddly the same even through this vast scope — people are born, they die, they struggle to scrape by, they harbor dark secrets, they commit atrocities and heartbreaking acts of love, all on this seemingly eternal cluster of islands.

At times the sheer amount of disturbing images can be exhausting to read through. Although there is beauty in the Shore, with its lush vegetation and wild ponies, Taylor paints it mostly as a grim and even gruesome place, describing in detail the particular smell of the factories where chickens are slaughtered, the way it feels to stab someone or be held down to an open flame, and, eventually, the particular ways a widespread disease disfigures its victims in the future. It seems the worst of humanity inhabits the Shore; the supporting cast is full of abusive husbands and fathers, rapists, drug dealers, murderers. The main characters can be equally appalling, yet their stories are undeniably compelling. Once you’re immersed in this gritty world, it’s hard to put the book down.

Sara Taylor writes beautifully, immersing the reader fully in the lives of these characters. The stories are woven together subtly — a dead relative mentioned briefly may star in their own chapter later, a passing reference may turn out to be a major plot point — which, for me, made this book a fun puzzle to read. Naturally, some of the chapters are weaker than others and don’t seem to fit into the larger story, but once you get to the final chapter, it becomes clear how everything led to that point. And it is satisfying to get there — although the journey isn’t bad, either. ...more

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About Sara Taylor

Sara Taylor

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Sara Taylor is a product of the United States and the homeschooling movement. She traded her health for a BFA from Randolph College, and her sanity for an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. Following the MA her supervisor refused to let her leave, so she remains at the UEA to chip away at a double-focus PhD in censorship and fiction. She spends an unprecedented amount of time ...more