To tell you the truth...This book was the bomb. It was a page-turner and at the end I had gotten teary-eyed. Drowning Ruth just looking at the title captivated my attention. Then the lady has my first name whih made it better. On top of all things it's part of Oprah's book club(which i didn't know she had).... In my review since I'm doing this for school I'm going try mot to make mistakes and talk about each character and the stroy plot. I'm also put my thoughts in parenthesis. This review contains spoiler. You could say I'm retelling the book in my own words for 2 hours but not talking about it writing about it. This book is a book that makes you actually think and use your foreshadowing skills. In the Winter of 1919 this mother(Mathilda a.k.a Mattie)(i'm having goosebumps writing this)drowns in a lake in Winsconsin her death changes her sister, daughter and husband lives. It opens up secerts that should've been kept quiet. Amanda Starky is Mahthilda's oldest and only sister who lived on the farm with her family until Mathilda got married to her husband(Carl) so Amanda(a.k.a Mandy) left and went to nurse school. She finally came back after she was in kahoots(if that is even a word) with a fling(btw he was married at the time of the fling)with this guy named Clement Owens. While she was a nurse she met him in the hospital trying to sell the hospital something and they met. She did't know he was married...she thought he was the perfect man( which every lady in that time wanted..even in this time) He bought her roses and took her to the fanciest places but he went on a lot of business trips(i think he went home to be with his wife..but that's my opinion.) But he was perfect in her eyes because he never forced her to do anything..all he did was take her to romantic places and kissed her cheek and touched her neck then he will kiss her lips..it was romantic..but then one night he came to he excited sayin he got a job to work in the military so they could use his inventions..They went to a hotel and she was devirginized(btw she was in her 20's)but back then that was normal because they waited till they were married..anyways later in the book i realized she concieved a little girl that niight..but she told him it was ok they had sex.. they'll just get married(oviously normal thing to do)but he was liike i have a wife and kids and he left. At that time she packed up her stuff and went back to her hometown Winsconsin to live with her sister. Her sister Mathilda was a million times happy that she finally came to visit her and her daughter(Ruth)..(btw Carl is in war at this time)..So I'm guessing after a month when she noticed she wasn't feeling well and her cycle didn't come she noticed she was pregnant.She and her sister ever since little had a lot of land which included their own lake and island and land. She begged her sister( before she told her sister she was pregnant) if all three( Mathilda,Ruth, Amanda) of them could live on the island. They were debating back and forth. So finally they moved to the islandand her pregnancy began. Mathila decided to come up with a story saying that she found this young girl who was having a baby and she couldn't take care of it because she couldn't so Mathilda will raise the baby has her own. Amanda agreed with the story because she didn't want people talking and ban her. During the 9months they lived on the island. The night of the birth I leave for the end because that's the same day Mathilda drowned(my eyes are getting watery). The baby girl is born and named Imogene(you'll be hearing that name again). Later on in the story Ruth grows up and is ready for school...Carl is back from war and goes deeper in the Mathilda drowning story..Now I don't want to tell te whole book because I guarentee you would want to read it yourself. So Ruth is in elementary school and she is a loner doesn't have many friends but is spotted by the most popular girl in the school whose name is Imogene( after Mathilda died Amanda took care of Ruth)... They became the bestest friends but they didn't know they were related. There older now in their 20's 3 yrs apart. They are at business school learning how to type and stuff. They know this boy named Arthur Owens(son of Clement Owens). Ruth and Arthur have a connection because he's the one who found her mom when she drowned when he was younger. But Imeogene gets a job working for Mrs. Owens and falls in love with Arthur Owens. They hang out a lot but little do theyknow that they are brother and sister. He know she's probably a good wife but he's in love with Ruth which is his cousin... I'm goin to stop here because I think you should read it yourself...Bye..

The book, "Drowning Ruth" by Christina Schwarz, didn't really capture my attention in the beginning, so it took me a longer time to read. When I started reading it more, it got me more interested. I liked how it had switching points of view in each chapter. In the first part of the chapter it could be in the third person and another part of the chapter it could be in the first person. What I didn't like about the switching point of views is that in the third person, it would be what is happening right at that moment and when in the first point of view, usually Amanda's, it was from the past. When Amanda was telling about the past, it sometimes helped me understand what was actually going on and other times it just confused me a little.
Another thing I like about the book is that some characters keep secrets that you might have to figure out on your own, but eventually you will find out what it is. I like how something from Amanda's past that she experience with her sister, Mathilda, who is now dead, ended up somehow effecting her life in the future. Mathilda's husband, Carl, and her daughter, Ruth, don't really know anything that happened in her sister's and hers past.
Also, I don't like how in the book one chapter Ruth would be four and the next she would be around six or seven. The book skips a lot of time between some chapters that might have had something happen. A few of the chapters skip a year in Ruth's life, like from fourteen to sixteen, and things happened that would be explained in the next chapter in Amanda's point of view, Ruth's point of view, and sometimes in Carl's point of view. They would all explain it in a different way.
Amanda reminds me of a worried mother, even though her never had any kids...that we know of. She would always try to protect Ruth since the day her mother died. On the day that Ruth's mother died, another thing happened to Amanda. After Mathilda drowned, Amanda would keep Ruth out of the water so she wouldn't drown too. Ruth's mother died when she was around two and the next time she went swimming was when she was around sixteen. Also, when Ruth was around the age to start school, Amanda did her best to keep her home and to home school her. That reminds me of parents who don't want their child to start the first day of school.
When I finished the book, I was kind of stuck in middle of liking it a lot and liking it a little. I liked it because it had different people's point of view on things, but I didn't like it because sometimes when the point of view changed, it made me confused and a little hard to follow.

I CAN'T do it! I'm ⅓ of the way into it and I keep waiting for "the gripping psychological thriller" to start but unless I force myself to pick it up and read it I don't. I keep telling myself the last 50 pages are going to be awesome and pull it all together.... But is it worth my time for the first 250 pages - nope!

Butterfly Effect and emotionally dysfunctional family is all I could think, where someone has a Big Secret and it eats at the character throughout the novel but somehow this secret touches everyone beyond the person it directly effects, basically ruining their lives. One must wait until the end to get the Big Reveal, in regards to the drowning. Both Ruth and Amanda (the two quasi-narrators, when the text isn't busy jumping back and forth between third person perspective and the first person perspective) are seriously emotionally constipated but also clingy to the point of smothering. On the one hand I'm inclined to blame the grandmother (yes I'm still looking for that insanity bit, passing on through the generations) but all she wanted was a bit of peace and quiet whereas the other two had major issues of letting go. Well, and maybe they were a little neurotic too.

I guess I'm just disappointed because I was simply hoping for a book about a woman who went crazy, tried to drown her daughter and drowned instead. I was hoping that's where it was going in the first couple of chapters but then it went somewhere else completely. Ah well. Maybe next time.

This is a heartbreaking story about two sisters and their babies. Lovely writing for a first book.
It is set in Wisconsin and covers from 1919-1940's. I lived there for several years and although the town "Nagawaukee" doesn't exist, several other places I was familiar with appear in the book. It's always nice to see something familiar.

I wasn't as impressed with this book as I thought I was going to be. Something I always tell other people: don't go into a book with expectations. I should have listened to my own advice, then maybe I would have enjoyed the book a little bit more. But this being Schwarz's first novel, I'm not going to complain too much, because it was still pretty good.

It was a little too jumpy, just all around, writing, plot line, characters. While they weren't all over the map, they didn't stay on the same line. I also think Schwarz put herself in a hard place with some of the characters because a few of them served a purpose while at the same time seemed pointless. You know those types of characters I'm talking about? Those are almost as annoying as the ones who have no point at all. But I think she put herself in a hard place because they couldn't have been written out.

Also, it seemed that Schwarz had some difficulty catching Ruth's age when she was younger. I couldn't figure out what age she was supposed to be because she was never acting her age. Unless it was said what age she was supposed to be at certain times, I wouldn't have had a clue.

You can easily get past all those for a very interesting story. It's slow going at the beginning, but give it a chance because once you get into it you'll love it. It's sort of like a mystery with an unexpected twist. You think you know the whole story halfway through, but you really don't. There's a lot more than meets the eye.

the premise of this book was good. it sounded really interesting. unfortunately I was bored by most of it. I spent most of the day read it, in hopes it would get better. sadly, this book just did not work for me.

Gripping and simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, this book did a great job of portraying characters in complex ways; not wholly monstrous and not quite innocent.

Dnf at 51% i could already see where this was going and i didn’t like it, i usually dont dnf books but this took a lot to read and i felt like i was wasting time.

A sad, mysterious, beautiful, vivid story that kept me captivated from the first page to the last. Wow. I want to read everything by this author.

The last thing I do in the world is take advice from celebrities so when I discovered this was on Oprah’s book club list I almost didn’t pick it up. But the book kept calling out to me and I folded. Beautiful story. It reminded me a lot of “The Heretic’s Daughter”, by Kathleen Kent. Though completely different it had the same feel.

‘Drowning Ruth’ is a story of painful secrets, love for a child and a woman’s life sacrifice for this child. This is one of those stories that tugs at your heart and keeps you turning the pages in hopes things will turn out right in the end. It also pulls you on in hopes to discover the mystery that has been woven throughout.

Characters were believable, flawed, likeable and real. I found myself frustrated at times when secrets lived on but that is what made it valid. Secrets enslave us more often than protect. Dialogue was right on and I flew though the story. The only problem I did have was in the beginning. It jumps from one’s point of view to the next and even jumps from one time to another but once I figured that out, I found it easy enough to follow.

Glad I own this Book!

Someone recommended this one to me and I was on the spot to read it even though it didn’t look like my cup of tea. That said, you just never know so I gave it an open minded shot. 1/3 of the way in though it was clear that this was below my personal standards. I may be picky, but this one really fell short. Much much too overwrought. The writer tries to induce the reader to emotion which for me made it feel false. The story was also extremely predictable and without real depth. Not recommended.