It's a cold winter, on a lonely island when Mathilda drowns, leaving her child Ruth with sister Amanda to take care of her. Ruth's father eventually returns from the war and the three have to learn how to live with each other. Even though Ruth was only a few years old, she has a few fragmented memories including her being in the water and there being a baby. The rest of the book is Ruth piecing these memories together as she grows older under Amanda and her dad's watchful eye.

I've had bad luck with Oprah Book Club books in the past few years. This one isn't as bad as some of the othr ones out there. It was over dramatic, with Amanda being rather neurotic. I understand that she wants to take care of her niece after her sister dies but there's really no reason to the extremes she goes to in her thoughts of protecting Ruth.

The ending was a bit of a let down as well. I'm sure I hoped for the same type of ending that the majority of sane people would want for Ruth in this book. Unfortunately it was just more of the same for these characters.

This was an interesting story-dark, atmospheric, bleak, and cold. It just seems….unfinished, perhaps. To me, there is obviously something wrong with the main character, Amanda-mentally. There was something wrong with her parents, too-mentally. And Carl, also one of the main characters, had issues as well. One minute he is recovering from wounds he received in WWI, and then a few years later, he sort of becomes paranoid and a bit unhinged, and then he goes away. But none of this is addressed, though, of course, it took place in the 1920’s and 1930’s, when only the worst of the worst were addressed. The story was rather predictable, but that does not bother me, since many stories are. The important thing is the telling of the story, and this was done well. It just feels as though something is missing.

I read this upon the recommendation of an old co-worker and figured, Hey! It's part of Oprah's book club and I loved One Hundred Years of Solitude,She's Come Undone, The Reader, White Oleander, and have MANY OTHER Oprah picks on my 'tbr' list... yet, I was so disappointed.

Drowning Ruth is a jumpy historical "mystery" novel centered around the mysterious death of young mother Mattie. Her sister, Amanda, is the main narrator of the story and coincidentally returns home from her duties as a WWI nurse shortly before Mattie's death. As the story progresses, Schwarz allows the narrator to change from Amanda to Mattie's survived family, and allows the novel to progress through these perspectives through time.

Unfortunately, the writing is boring and haulted; sometimes disjointed and not entertaining enough for me to follow. I have about 1/4 of the book left to read, but I *accidentally* peaked and kind of know what is going to happen. It's not enough for me to finish the remaining ~100 pages or less.

Maybe I can pick this book up LATER and finish it, but not right now.

I liked what i liked and i didn't like what i didn't like about this book. At the end of the story i said to myself, Why? What was the purpose and the Meaning. I'll give it a good twist or two but even with that Why? The author was good with going back and forth, in and out, past and present so with that being said the book was all over the place which is how i felt after reading it

I swaer, with some of the books being written today I could write a book about mutant kung-fu hamsters and get it published. The story danced around the central question: "What Really Happened the Night Mathilda Died?" After a while I just didn't care. The whole lot of them could have fallen through the ice for all I cared. The characters were stupid to the nth degree and there seemed to be a running theme of "Co-dependency is great!" running through the whole thing. The "big twists" to the story can easily be figured out without the use of much brainpower. For it being a fairly short book and with it raining outside all week it took me three days to get through. I kept thinking of so much better things that I could be doing. Like taking a power tool to my forehead. Something more fun than this.

I enjoyed the plot overall but didn’t really connect with the characters. The timeline jumped around a lot which kept me engaged with the mystery of the story. Good story, not great.

For me personally, this book had so much going on that it was hard to keep track of. The back and forth between time frames, the amount of people wove into this web, the speech of those living in 1919.... it was slightly difficult to follow. I did enjoy it and it captivated me, but it's not something I would recommend or read again. I would, however, watch a movie on it. It was an interesting plot.

Wishy-washy and predictable.

Amazing! I think I drove my husband insane while reading this because after every page, I would put it down and exclaim, ""This book is crazy, babe!"" The author uses both first and third person to tell her story from multiple perspectives. Some of the negative reviews for this novel sited the use of both first and third person as their main reason for disliking the format of the story. I personally found it quite useful in the character development and that is where this novel truly excelled. The characters were not only interesting but completely relatable. what struck me most is the ending. The characters that grew up as the story progressed, grew to exhibit the traits and characteristics of their familial ties...much as we all do despite our best efforts.

The mystery throughout the book is finding out what happened on the fated evening that changed every character's life for good. It keeps the reader interested and by the end I was dying to know what had happened. Am I suppose to hate the main character or pity her? In the end, it's both.

Loved Drowning Ruth, I was hooked right from the beginning. The characters were believable, the setting was perfect for the story, I could picture everything. I was completely surprised by the ending, I didn't see it coming.
It's a great book club book, there's so much you could discuss, so many ways to look at it.
I highly recommend it and would love to read other books by this author.

I enjoyed this book. It was a little slow for me and didn’t hold my full attention the whole time because it felt repetitive. I did think it was a good story though and it had a sad backstory

2.5 ⭐️

Based in Wisconsin which was cool because that's where I’m from & live. It was fun knowing all of the places mentioned in this book. Apart from that, I found the book & characters really boring and unable to hold my attention. It felt like it took forever to get anywhere & when the author finally got to the point it was disappointing to me and fell flat.