From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

Reservoir 13

Jon McGregor

Start date: August 1, 2025

Finish date: September 15, 2025

Discussion: 2025 Tournament

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2025 Tournament

Round E voting - 15 September
By Henk · 11 posts · 12 views

last updated 23 hours, 45 min ago

Round E - 1 August - 15 September - Reservoir 13 vs Klara and the Sun vs Headshot
By Henk · 14 posts · 19 views

last updated Sep 09, 2025 10:49PM

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What Members Thought

Mar 20, 2018 El rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, library-borrow, peer-pressure

Painful.

That is the word that comes to mind when I think about this book. Another word is excruciating.

The concept behind the story is one I get on board with: a teenage girl has gone missing and the town comes together to search for her. Each chapter is a full year in the lives of the people in the town since Rebecca Shaw has gone missing.

This sounds like all the forensic shows I love to watch, or even like Twin Peaks which is life itself.

I've seen this book referred to as a "quiet novel", whic Painful.

That is the word that comes to mind when I think about this book. Another word is excruciating.

The concept behind the story is one I get on board with: a teenage girl has gone missing and the town comes together to search for her. Each chapter is a full year in the lives of the people in the town since Rebecca Shaw has gone missing.

This sounds like all the forensic shows I love to watch, or even like Twin Peaks which is life itself.

I've seen this book referred to as a "quiet novel", which I suppose we can all agree with. But when I think a "quiet novel", I generally think of Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horse, which I found beautiful, haunting, and fantastic. Reservoir 13, unfortunately, left me cold throughout. I never felt anything or anyone to connect to, and there was no universal truth I could even grasp onto.

The disappearance of Rebecca Shaw is just the catalyst to the novel. McGregor could have easily have written a book about people in a town with any other incitement such as a flood or other natural disaster. The disappearance of a young girl is appealing enough to interest readers, but it only reared its head periodically, and when it did, I was so far into the field of disinterest that even that failed to grab my attention again.

I'm glad that this book has worked for so many readers - that they've felt some beauty in these pages that elude me entirely. It took me 14 days to read this which is longer than it takes me to read many things, and that was in part because I felt this rock in my gut every time I picked up the book because I never felt anything while reading it. Not a bit of sadness, not interest beyond the first couple pages, not warmth at any of the beautiful writing that others seemed to find. I only felt cold. COLD. The short sentences (and sometimes long paragraphs) were downright painful and uncomfortable to read.

But I am only one opinion and it means nothing anyway. I haven't been this unhappy while reading a book since I read The Martian.

I'll just be over here in the corner, alone with my feelings. ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Apr 09, 2025 Henk rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This feels like a boring soap, Neighbours set in the English hills basically. The central disappearance of a young girl doesn’t manage to elevate the lives depicted in the rest of the novel.
The world did not always sound right when it is first explained.

After a disappearance of a young girl we have 13 chapters that correlate with years in the English town the events unfolded in. Not much happens.
Are we having a pantomime? Who is doing the Harvest day display? Elections for the parish council.
All ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Nov 21, 2017 Nadine in California rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: couldn-t-get-through-it

My brain can understand why people like this book, but my heart says it's like reading an almanac. I went with my heart and quit at page 75. The writing is so understated and gentle that I could have skim-read the rest of it in a day, but it would have been a disservice to the book. I read it for an in-person book group, and the group was about evenly divided between liking and disliking, but the liking was mild and the disliking was pretty vehement. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Mar 26, 2018 Sera rated it liked it

Shelves: library, mystery

2.5 stars

I found this book frustrating to read because I had trouble identifying what the story purports to be. Is it about a missing girl? Is it about the residents of a small town in England? Who knows? The ending doesn't help to answer this question either.

The writing can also be challenging because McGregor uses a type of stream of consciousness approach where the topic of a paragraph is likely to change mid-stream and shift to a different set of characters. Besides not really enjoying the s ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Apr 10, 2018 Julie marked it as didnt-finish

Shelves: europe, group-read-roundtable, man-booker-prize

This book is a long string of short, random things about a whole lot of different people in a village, with the disappearance of a girl as the background. I can't keep anyone straight and I feel like I am constantly just starting a new book and trying to get into it. Not interesting enough to finish.... ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2025 Pamela rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-tbr

Beautifully written book about life in an English village. A girl disappears on New Year’s Eve, there is a flurry of activity as the search begins, then the village resumes its natural rhythms and people find a way to deal with events according to their own perspectives. As the years pass, time brings about changes that affect all those involved.

This book has a mystery at its centre but it really isn’t a mystery story and those expecting the usual genre tropes will be (and have been judging by s ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 07, 2025 Dawn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2025, literary-fiction

I loved the beautiful phrases and repetition of sentences that seemed to offer as much continuity to the story as the characters. The author has an incredible way with words that made the story gorgeous, the people normal but interesting, and the setting integral to the narrative.

(first line) They gathered at the car park in the hour before dawn and waited to be told what to do. (and in every chapter) At midnight when the year turned......

I enjoyed the glimpse of a tiny sliver of each persons li ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 21, 2018 Karen Michele Burns rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dublin-lit-short

Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 is a slow tale of real life. Based on the disappearance of a young girl, it reminds us that life continues through grief and lack of resolution. Some patterns must continue and others are better broken. Another Goodreads poster in the Roundtable group (thanks, Kai) mentioned the repeating themes as like a piece of music and the story does unfold like a symphony based on Theme and Variations. I loved the addition of the natural world and it’s patterns and seasons. I te ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Oct 12, 2022 Heather(Gibby) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Ok, this is another one of those books that people whom I highly respect have given 4 or 5 stars, but I found it so slow, and boring. Nothing happens. Reading other people's reviews, I was supposed to be awed by how ordinary life is represented, and how well the author has shown how people's perceptions change over time. I much prefer a plot driven story, so no matter how well written this was, it just was not for me. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 12, 2025 Irene rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A 13 year old tourist goes missing while hiking with her parents on the edge of a rural English village. In the glare of TV cameras, with the entire country watching, this feels like the most significant event that has happened in this community. The specter of the missing girl flickers behind the fears and hopes, the plans realized and failed for years to come. Meanwhile, with few looking, people are born into this world and leave it, children depart for university and jobs and the family busin ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 11, 2025 Erika rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-gentle, fiction-literary

I'll call it "gentle" fiction even though the premise and anchor is the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl on the moors near a small town somewhere in the general area of Manchester. Five stars, which is a rare occurrence on my bookshelf. The writing reminds me of McEwan, in the sense that not a single word was wasted. Every word was precisely right, and every sentence was crafted with the skills of a surgeon. Her disappearance is more a mystery than a tragedy, and this is really the story of t ...more

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