Do You like book Reservation Road (1999)?
This book tried too hard I think. Tried to be heart wrenching, tried to be viscerally real... Tried too hard and fell flat. I picked it up because the sequel sounded good. I don't think I'll be reading the sequel.In a seriously depressing beginning, a man rushes home with his ten year old son and hits another man's ten year old son - killing him- and in a moment of panic drives off. That's the plot. Nothing else of note happens. Predictably, the family that loses the son cracks - the dead son's mother ceases to function, the marriage suffers, the remaining daughter flounders....the killer is guilt stricken, his son confused... It's all told in short chapters from different character's perspectives that really felt like it was designed for a movie script, yet falls short on empathy. I simply didn't care.I felt no connection to any character. While I understand the feeling of being completely lost at sea after losing someone, and also of being overwrought with guilt, I cannot relate to the complete lassitude of all players. "Victim" doesn't even begin to describe their complete and utter helplessness in the face of tragedy. They *all* wander aimlessly while everything they know falls apart around them, never doing a thing to help themselves. Of course the families of the dead child and the killer end up intertwining - you knew they would - in too-convenient and contrived to be stressful/wrenching sort of ways, leading to the grief stricken father figuring out who dunnit, and to a too drawn out ending of "will he or won't he" seek revenge. Overall the book was too heavy and not very well executed - there were moments of pain in the descriptions of grief, but overall it was just depressing and tried too hard to elicit an emotional response...and at least for me, completely failed. I really didnt care, and only finished it because I hate quitting books.
—Amy
If ever there were two people in the world who needed either counseling or a good chest-beating, accusation-laden, finger-wagging, knock-down, curse-ridden fight, it's Ethan and Grace. I get that what they went through was the worst thing you can experience as a parent, but they were so content to let that consume them, and that made this story hard to read.Beyond that, Dwight is just an ass. There is no black or white here. He's self-absorbed, angry, obnoxious and violent, and he's in the wrong for the entirety of the book. He lets his issues with his ex-wife, his son, and his work cloud his thinking, and never once tries to redeem himself.The only characters I actually cared for in this book were Sam and Emma. Sam, forced to be older and wiser than his 10 years, and Emma, forced to live in a home where her parents have lost themselves to grief, where she's become the non-child in the face of her brother's death, and where she's made to be the strongest of the Learner family.I struggled so with the complete lack of caring on Ethan and Grace's part. At some point, don't you have to remember your other child? Don't you realize your responsibilities as a parent, and as a spouse? Don't you step back and say, "We might need some help here"?I know this is going to sound terrible, but I was also frustrated by Josh. How awful is that? This kid - this peripheral character who is only briefly in, but manages to drive the entire story, this child who was taken so young - this same kid manages to frustrate me. But maybe it wasn't Josh I was frustrated with. Maybe it was Ethan, and his inability to reach Josh, or his lack of trying.This was written well, and I liked that the chapters flipped between the three major adults in the story, but I would have liked a little more gumption from Ethan and Grace, and something a little more redeeming from Dwight. I shudder to imagine what the future years hold for Sam and Emma.
—Jessica
I find it hard to put into words how I feel about this book. It is without a doubt one of the most moving portrayals of grief and love that I have ever read. Imagine seeing your precious, irreplacable young son mowed down in front of you. Now imagine being the driver that did it. In our wildest musings we could not even come close to the guilt and sorrow this would throw down on our lives and everyone we meet from that second forward. This novel, written in the narratives of Ethan and Grace, who are the parents of Josh and Emma, and also Dwight, the driver, is just so close to perfection in showing us the fractures in our hearts and minds and marriages from just such a thing. The story really focuses on the two fathers, Ethan and Dwight. They both try really hard at being great dads, really hard, yet for Ethan it comes natural and for Dwight it is the biggest struggle in his life, his own father was no role model. There is a section in the book that had tears streaming down my face where Ethan's colleague is talking to him about what a great dad he was, how other kids wait for their fathers to just turn and listen and nod, and how he did it always not realising the acknowledgement he was giving, it was so touching.And there is Grace, at times I felt so unsympathetic to her, I mean she still has Emma to care for and nurture. But the grief overwhelms her as does her resentment to Ethan and she falls into a great depression over the loss of her son whom she carried in her arms whilst she planted their garden. The author does a great job of showing how all these little things in their lives, the day to day things that before this accident never meant a thing, and now they seem to represent everything. For instance, Grace gets out of bed, her side is thoroughly dishevelled, yet Ethan has pulled the covers right up to the headboard, almost like he laid there and slept peacefully, and she hates him for it.There is so much to love about this book, so many notes I could make but none of them can accurately portray how brilliant this novel is. I just loved it, all of it, even the ending.
—Jodie