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Content snapshot
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Violence
Barely any
Minimal physical violence; the harm in the novel is social and legal
Language
Barely any
Mild language in Shreve's literary register
Sexual Content
A lot
Explicit sexual content between a fifteen-year-old girl and an adult man; this is the novel's central and most problematic element
Substance Use
Barely any
Some period-appropriate drinking
Emotional Intensity
A lot
The psychological consequences of a young girl's choices and the world's punishment of those choices — the legal battle over her child — give the novel its sustained and sobering power
What this book is about
Anita Shreve's novel follows Olympia Biddeford, fifteen, who falls into an intense affair with a forty-year-old married doctor during the summer of 1899 at Fortune's Rocks, New Hampshire. Shreve writes with her characteristic emotional directness; the power imbalance in the relationship is not romanticized, and the legal and social consequences Olympia faces are rendered with historical accuracy. The sexual content involving a fifteen-year-old and an adult man is explicit. Adult readers only.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Explicit sexual content involving a fifteen-year-old
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