Rating: 
Summary: Slow, depressing
Review: Picked up this book on vacation in November to pass some time on the beach. This is not a book I would recommend. Story starts with a bang then drags on and on. The characters did not hold my interest and overall I found the book depressing.
Rating: 
Summary: I stayed up all night to finish this book
Review: Reservation Road is a story of loss, love, revenge and redemption -- I couldn't stop turning the pages, and stayed up all night to finish it. A must-read, for sure.
Rating: 
Summary: What Gives With the Ending?!
Review: Schwartz weaves one of the most interesting tales I've read in a long time. An educated family are returning home from a concert when, while stopped at a rest area, their son is killed in a hit and run. Driver of the car is a divorced dad just getting his life back together. His own son is asleep in the car. The author switches from chapter to chapter who the narrator is (between the boy's mother, father, and the driver of the car) and does so with unparalleled skill. Usually this tactic annoys me, but here it works well. We get to see how the death affects all involved, as well as the relationships in the family and beyond. Tension mounts as the case goes unsolved with the police. Finally Dad takes matters into his own hands. He discovers who did it too, but here's where everything falls apart. Schwartz, for all of his skill until this point, just doesn't know how to end the book and the way he ends up going with is wholly unsatisfying.
Rating:
Summary: READ THIS NOVEL!
Review: Subtle, powerful, haunting. Schwartz writes understated, elegant prose that will resonate long after you've put the novel down. A masterful work.
Rating:
Summary: Blah ..
Review: The idea behind this book is clever, but the book doesn't live up to its promise. The author is self-consciously trying to be deep, but therefore it all seems shallow and contrived. The feelings and thoughts of the various participants in the death of the child are uninteresting and often predictable.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading but NOT 5 stars...
Review: The multiple points of view for narration are handled well, but Grace seems superfluous while Sam does not appear as one of the voices. The general premise is solid, and the conclusion is intense--I did not know until the final sentences how things would turn out, and what the author presents is entirely plausible. Definitely worth checking out despite some scenes that seem to add little.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant character analysis with weak ending
Review: The plot kept me turning pages. The characters were well-drawn, the writing beautiful, and the suspense built to a dramatic letdown. The behavior of the victim's father at the end was completely out of character and implausible. I also think the average person wants some punishment for a serious crime other than the perpetrator's guilt feelings. I think the author didn't know how to end it.
Rating: 
Summary: An understated marvel
Review: There's an inherent problem in writing (and reading) novels which devote themselves entirely to unexpected death and its aftermath, entirely aside from the fact that it's a subject matter which has been done, and re-done, and overdone since the dawn of fiction, and is therefore very difficult to make fresh, interesting or insightful. The major problem is that the author runs the very real risk of dousing the reader with such unrelenting dreariness that finishing the book is almost a chore. As far as novels about death go, Reservation Road is far better than most. It's thought-provoking, sincere, and, for the most part, avoids melodrama. But there's not much new for Schwartz to explore-if grief is a universal language, the theme of personal loss is a literary staple. The ending of the book (I won't spoil it) is somewhat surprising, and emotionally fulfilling at first-until one gives it serious thought and wonders if the author sacrificed reality for the sake of making "a point" about human nature.Two things save Reservation Road, however, and make it worth reading. The first is the character of Dwight, whose anguish and self-loathing in the wake of the accident he caused is arresting, complex, and unique. The second is Schwartz's prose, which is lucid and engaging-on occasion, it's even downright eloquent. In the end, the novel is an almost perfect hybrid of Jacqueline Mitchard's far inferior "The Deep End of the Ocean" and James Agee's superior "A Death in the Family." It may not be a lasting work of literature, but it's a good piece of contemporary fiction. I would consider sampling Schwartz's work again.
Rating:
Summary: expecting more getting much less
Review: This book came to me very highly recommended, but I was rather disappointed. I found the subject matter compelling and I thought it was going to be a great read...but what I found was a story that pushes you in head first (and not in a good way) and doesn't give you time to get to know the characters you are expected to care about, later. Sure I was sad that this family lost a child, but I didn't know the family before nor did I understand the family's relationship with the boy that died. The boy is killed in the very beginning we don't even get good flashbacks. The book left me wanting so much more. The ending was disappointing but a relief after a very long and boring middle. The book had very few characters who seemed almost too easily placed in the story...too connect that it lost the book's reality. It had some good moments and you learn to like some of the characters, but I wouldn't rush out and get it, but if you can't find anything else to read, go ahead you might like it, others did.
Rating: 
Summary: Seemingly neverending
Review: This book did not live up to the synopsis on the back cover. It just went on and on for so long and then it was as if the author got tired and just wanted to finish it up. I found myself feeling more for the hit and run driver then I did the parents. His chapters were the most engaging. The parents', particularly the mother's, were just boring. I recommended that my bookclub read this one. My first two words at the impending meeting? I'm sorry.
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