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Summary: Loved It
Review: I have read many reviews were people have said they didnt like this book.Im glad i didnt listen.I really liked it.
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Summary: A Wonderful Read
Review: This book started off wonderful and kept up throughout. There is constant suspense and tension, and the ending is so wonderful. i would recommend this to anyone
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best choice of novels
Review: This book is narrated by two characters: Amanda and Ruth. The story is told from both of their perspectives and jumps back and forth from the past to the present from one paragraph to another. You'd have to be a careful reader to keep up. We ultimately decided that this would not be a best choice book, but we would recommend it to someone who likes to read something different from the norm.
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Summary: It all comes together in the end...
Review: While reading "Drowning Ruth" I got extremely frustrated with not knowing where I was, how a certain chapter pertained to the big picture. I almost gave up more than once but I sure am glad I didn't! This book turned out to be one of the best I have ever read. What a wonderful tie in at the end of the novel. Incredibly moving and expressive. I loved it!
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Summary: So much more than you're everyday read....
Review: While I am not usually one for a whole lot of sequential jumping Schwartz uses it in this novel to her advantage. She grabs you at once with the lurking thought of Amanda's dear sister Ruth's death, and plays on it like a small background tune while the story unravels. You read from different perspectives, through various present and past scenes, and you will literally picture the scene the author portrays for you. Family secrets, hushed affairs and lost siblings will twist and turn the plot at the perfect pace.Please keep in mind as you buy this book, it is not a "happy ending" feel good kind of book. ... But it is very provoking, deep, and even subtle in the story, giving your mind the chance to figure out and conclude and wonder about these amazing characters. I think I even haven't figured out all the details yet, but that's okay, this book isn't one you read and forget. It would be great for a book club, because discusions will follow with whomever you know who has read it. While this book isn't exactly on my list of favorites,( I think because the overall tone is on the depressing side,) I have no trouble recommending it to someone who likes to read good writing that is different then the usual read.
Rating:
Summary: Wasn't too bad
Review: Set in 1919, Amanda Starkey returns to her home in Milwaukee to escape the problems she encountered in WWI. One year after she returned, her younger sister Mattie mysteriously drowns one night and she is left to take care of her house, child: Ruth, and her husband; who has not yet returned form the war. This tantalizing story gives you an insight into the secrets this family holds. As the text jumps from character to character and from past to the present, we see an overview of each character and how they deal with the problems they are faced with. You won't want to put this book down until you get to the end.
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Summary: WOW
Review: Set in 1919, Amanda Starkey returns to her home in Milwakee, to escape the trouble that she faced in WWI. A year after she returns her younger sister Mattie dies and Amanda is left to take care of her house, child and husband; who has not yet returned from war. This tantalizing story captures you into the secrets this one family holds. You can't help but to read on and find out what really happened. As the text jumps from charater to characture and from the past to the present, it gives you an all- around insight into each of the charcters. This compelling mystery will have you hooked.
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Summary: Drowning Ruth on the big screen
Review: Having very movie-like qualities the novel "Drowning Ruth" seems to be more cinematic then Analytical. Despite the nature of the novel to jump forward and backward through time Christina Schwarz's ability to paint such a palpable picture of the story of a woman inuring hard times leads me to think it is possible and almost inevitable that this book will become a movie. The cinematic qualities of the novel is one of the many reasons I am able to be taken so deeply into the story and the compelling relationship between Amanda and Ruth.
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Summary: below the surface!
Review: Just below the surface of this novel are several secrets that tangle up like fishing line in seaweed to complicate and change the lives of more than one family. It starts with a secret simple and enticing enough to drag you further into the story - just what did happen the night young Ruth remembers drowning, her mother did drown and her aunt denies all? Could it be murder? Insanity? Abandonment? An accident? That sinister secret covers up a shameful secret that led to that tragic night of Novembe 1919. The author is at her finest developing the plot and slowly revealing enough to keep you interested (and still wondering) while holding back the most crucial details till the very end. Her charactors are complex, caught between the stifling bonds of love, family duty, society's expectations and also, finding true meaning in those complicated bonds. There is enough complexity to make you wonder, even as you listen to their voices, what they really know and what are they hiding. The plot is weakest near the end, when a romantic liason is so predicatble as to bore you, and there are spots in the writing that are stilted and amaturish (this is a first novel).
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Summary: vaguely familiar territory re-energised...
Review: Drowning Ruth is one of those psychological dramas involving somewhat inconsistent (and sometimes incoherent) recollections of long past tragic events and the ultimate unravelling of it all. I felt a strong sense of deja vu (ie, didn't I experience all this before in some cheap made-for-TV movie?). I suppose its one curious element is that one of its primary characters is a little girl (Ruth) who claims early on in the book that she drowned. While this might all sound like unappetizing, it actually reads quite well. The author does an admirable job of describing the rather bleak northern Wisconsin landscape and its people. I suppose my only complaints are that the book does move at a somewhat slow pace, and its 'surprise' ending was no surprise to me at all. But these are actually minor quibbles in what has to be considered a wonderful first novel by Christina Schwarz. Bottom line: don't let the Oprah sticker on the front of the book turn you off. Drowning Ruth is actually fine book. Recommended.
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