Rating: 
Summary: A poor choice.
Review: I was quite disappointed. While the plot may have had potential, the book is simply not a good read. The characters are not realistic, and it seems that Brown puts too much effort in trying to reach the audience with her "message." Not worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Definetely a Page Turner!
Review: It is a compelling novel about relationships within a family and the struggle between right and wrong as the Reisers try to protect thier son. It's a great book!
Rating:
Summary: A book no one wanted to confront
Review: Okay, having a killer for a child is not a cheerful subject, but in this day and age, when drugs and guns and confused parents are so plentiful, I would say that this book is one of the most truthful and important essays on society one could hope to find. Having written this book, and having seen a mixed reception to both it and the movie version, I would imagine Ms. Brown thinking, why did I bother? Maybe not--perhaps Ms. Brown is happy it got as many readers as it did--and a movie starring Meryl Streep to boot. I have a few things in common with Ms. Brown--for one thing, we were in the same class in grammar school. Secondly, I've written a book called: Don't Let Your Kids Kill You: A Guide For Parents of Drug and Alcohol Addicted Children. My book is also hard to take, so I can understand Ms. Brown not getting the accolades she deserves. Few people want to read this kind of thing. Lorna Luft wrote a book about her mother's chemical addictions. Her mother was Judy Garland of "Over The Rainbow" fame. That didn't go over very well, either. The sooner people stop denying problems with our young people exist, books like "Before and After" which was so well researched and written, will be picked up again. And perhaps appreciated more.
Rating:
Summary: A book no one wanted to confront
Review: Okay, having a killer for a child is not a cheerful subject, but in this day and age, when drugs and guns and confused parents are so plentiful, I would say that this book is one of the most truthful and important essays on society one could hope to find. Having written this book, and having seen a mixed reception to both it and the movie version, I would imagine Ms. Brown thinking, why did I bother? Maybe not--perhaps Ms. Brown is happy it got as many readers as it did--and a movie starring Meryl Streep to boot. I have a few things in common with Ms. Brown--for one thing, we were in the same class in grammar school. Secondly, I've written a book called: Don't Let Your Kids Kill You: A Guide For Parents of Drug and Alcohol Addicted Children. My book is also hard to take, so I can understand Ms. Brown not getting the accolades she deserves. Few people want to read this kind of thing. Lorna Luft wrote a book about her mother's chemical addictions. Her mother was Judy Garland of "Over The Rainbow" fame. That didn't go over very well, either. The sooner people stop denying problems with our young people exist, books like "Before and After" which was so well researched and written, will be picked up again. And perhaps appreciated more.
Rating: 
Summary: The Family that Slays Together, Stays Together
Review: Sickening. That's the best word I can come up with to describe this novel. A teenage boy slaughters his girlfriend. His father immediately destroys the evidence. Mom is unhappy about it, but goes along for the ride. Dad helps son craft a false story that will stand up in court. Nowhere in this book do the parents confront the son, and tell him what he did was wrong. Their machinations are ultimately successful in helping him get off scot-free. The family moves out of state, and (presumably) lives happily ever after. And we're supposed to sympathise with these morally bankrupt felons? I wanted to see them all doing hard time.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping, but ultimately disappointing
Review: The pace is suspenseful and Brown's prose is as smooth, competent, and professional as could be. But ultimately the book is a huge disappointment. Only the daughter, Judith, comes alive for the reader as an individual. The father, Ben, and mother, Carolyn, never rise above type: she's a cool, rational professional; he's a hotheaded, arrogant artist. But they have little texture or personality beyond that. There is little indication what they ever saw in each other and no sense of their relationship outside of/before the central conflict of the book.And the son, Jacob, is a cypher. I realize that one of the points of the book may be that we can never know how or why a kid goes bad/goes wrong, but shouldn't the novelist attempt to at least explore some possibilities? But in order to do this, we'd have to know more about this kid than his crime, and we are told very little. Other reviewers have fixated on the animal abuse and "molestation" of his sister (it's not clear he was even old enough at the time to qualify as a molester, but leave that aside for now) but even these are so sketchy as to not be particularly enlightening. And the parents themselves--despite the pages and pages of introspection--seem unbelievably shallow and lacking in the most basic of questions. Consumed as they are with what they should do next, they never once ask themselves "how did this happen?" "is this my fault?" or even such niggling little questions as "why didn't I know my son had a girlfriend?" I find this hard to believe. . . Finally, the book does not deliver the emotional goods. As a parent, the idea of having to face this kind of tragedy/dilemma should have had me quaking and crying, but instead I just felt annoyed at the characters and irritated at the author. One never really *feels* the love and guilt that are supposedly driving these characters, making feeling any empathy for them very difficult.
Rating:
Summary: The Before and After Horror
Review: The real horror of the book is not the bludgeoning death of the young girl; the real horror is the bludgeoning of truth by Jacob's parents and sister. If to know that your son, your brother molested his sister, abused animals, has a seething temper that now and then vents itself by a fist through a wall, and will only own up to "accidently" striking his girfriend during a lover's quarrel while her corpse screams otherwise - if to know all this and continue to deny that this boy has a problem and to go so far as to unabashedly defend him with only a half-hearted qualm of conscience by his mother, then this book is a stinging indictment of the moral depravity to which contemporary nuclear families have sunk. God help us all!! Carolyn and Ben have a ticking timebomb on their hands. He will explode again. The only question is when. But then, maybe, that is a story for another novel. This book was a very disappointing selection for our book club. It is one thing to enter the world of depravity; this book offered no way out...
Rating: 
Summary: A welcome twist to the crime novel.
Review: The setting is small town New Hampshire. The secret girlfriend of high school student Jacob Reiser is found dead in the snow and all of the clues point to Jacob.
"Before and After" is a crime novel with a big twist. Rather than following a policeman or the fleeing criminal, it follows the family of the accused and what they go through. The book's title refers to life before and after the crime and how the seemingly perfect family is ripped apart.
It is told in the first person from the perspectves of mom, dad and sister (interestingly, never from Jacob's point of view). The brother and son they thought they knew is now a stranger.
At times, this book is an emotionally abusive roller coaster, but it would be an interesting read for a discussion group concerning the reactions of the family, especially the father and his criminal acts to cover up evidence and his obsession to help his son.
I'll give this book a "B+" for finding an interesting way to add a welcome twist to the crime novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Moral Dillema
Review: This book was thoroughly engaging in terms of how each character tried to deal with such a horrific event. I think that if I ever had a child who committed such a crime I'd probably want to protect him or her as much as possible too. It is interesting to see how each character decided what was the "right" thing to do. Perhaps it would have been nice if the parents had tried to discuss the "wrongness" of what he did with him. However, nothing they can say or do can bring that girl back and all the talk (in previous reviews) about wanting to see the son are warranted, but seem very extreme. The section with the "molestation" has been overly emphasized in previous reviews. In my humble opinion, that was nothing more than a curiosity explored and was fairly non-sexual. This isn't the most exciting and fast paced book, but is worth a read just to hear Brown's excellent use of language.
Rating:
Summary: Moral Dillema
Review: This book was thoroughly engaging in terms of how each character tried to deal with such a horrific event. I think that if I ever had a child who committed such a crime I'd probably want to protect him or her as much as possible too. It is interesting to see how each character decided what was the "right" thing to do. Perhaps it would have been nice if the parents had tried to discuss the "wrongness" of what he did with him. However, nothing they can say or do can bring that girl back and all the talk (in previous reviews) about wanting to see the son are warranted, but seem very extreme. The section with the "molestation" has been overly emphasized in previous reviews. In my humble opinion, that was nothing more than a curiosity explored and was fairly non-sexual. This isn't the most exciting and fast paced book, but is worth a read just to hear Brown's excellent use of language.
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