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Summary: Backroads
Review: This was one of my favorite books Oprah has chosen. It is so disturbing what these kids go through, and manage to keep going. I would definitly recommend this book to my friends.
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Summary: UNLIKE ANY OTHER OPRAH RECOMMENDATION
Review: I've read almost all of Oprah's recommended books and BACK ROADS is a first of it's kind. I read this book in less than 12 hours. I couldn't put it down! The character of Harley is unforgettable! Well worth the time! One of those books, which have memorable characters.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: As I read this book, I kept asking myself "Why did Oprah recommend this?" Why is there such a need to write such explicit sex scenes and filth to get your point across. I felt very uncomfortable reading this book. If this was Tawni O'Dell's intent, then she succeded.I did not find it 'funny' at all.I would not allow my teenage children to read this book or recommend it to anyone I know. Will Mrs O'Dell let her children read it and will they feel the same about her afterwards? The insightfulness of Harley was the only positive thing about this book and Jody was a sweet child. Don't waste your money.
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Summary: Bravo!Bravo!
Review: Could not stop reading this book, finished in three days. I cried for Harley, trying to hold his family together and being a child himself. The scary part about this story was that it could be true. I felt like I was peering into their window, watching this tragedy unfold,and just when I figured it out, Ms. O'dell took me some where else. Bravo! Bravo! Give us more!
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Summary: Another Good Read
Review: I thought the characters in 'Back Roads' were so good it reminded me of 'Songs in Ordinary Time' by Mary McGarry Morris, easily the best living fiction writer we have.
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Summary: good start slow middle killer end
Review: I felt like being on a runaway train the first hundred pages. Pieces of things kept popping up and you know they will be back to haunt you. A stunning debut for Ms. O'Dell.
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Summary: An Intriguing Age
Review: Even though I'm a bit older now, I always find books about the 20-year-old age fascinating, because it's a time of great changes that forge a person's character. I've just finished two novels that I absolutely loved, both of which were 20-something books: Back Roads and Brauner's Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf. Different, but both great reading. Highest recommendation.
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Summary: Greek Tragedy in the Allegheny Foothills
Review: My Michigan reading pal wrote me an e-mail to RUN to the bookstore to get Back Roads, the premiere novel by Tawni O'Dell. She's never steered me wrong so I did - and then spent every spare minute in the next two days with my nose in it. Ms. O'Dell writes very convincingly as Harley, the male 19 year old protagonist of this Greek Tragedy. This book is not for everyone and I applaud Oprah's courage for choosing it. The subject matter is gruesome and disturbing. This is the kind of story that most of us want to run from. But Ms. O'Dell's narrative is too gripping and to REAL to turn from. I will be in the front of the line to purchase her next offering.
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Summary: Just like a car wreck - you can't look away
Review: Oprah has outdone herself this time. This book had it all: 2 murders, sibling molestation, adultry, two family members in jail, one in a mental facility, dog to a "foster" home, one child forced to live with an uncle because the rest of the family self destructed! Oprah didn't miss anything this time. I gave the book five stars because it was well written and kept me turning pages. It was really an "easy" read. Sort of like looking at a car wreck- you know you'll see devistation at every angle, but you have to look - to know. Perhaps, it's time to let Oprah's staff pick a book and give the rest of us a break from depression and opression.
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Summary: Gritty and Captivating
Review: Tawni O'Dell's characters are beautifully written. Harvey, the book's main character suffers from the pent up sexual frustrations of a teen and the responsibilities of a grown up. Setting this book in the back roads of a small Pennsylvania town amongst deacying coal mines and the shadowy Appalachian woods , Miss O'Dell makes her readers feel the gritty decay and injustice of Harvey's world. The images of violence in the book are so vivid that a lump rose in my throat and I had to blink away tears. The descriptions of Black Lick and the woods felt so close to memories of my own from Pennsylvania that I felt as if I knew these roads and the people who traveled them. From tiny details like the Stretch Armstrong Harvey fails to recieve for his birthday to the Eat N' Park parking lot, this novel captures the spirit of small town America and coming of age in the eighties and nineties remarkably. What made the book such an exciting read was the honesty of these charaters and the TRUTH behind every word of this novel.
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