The Reserve, which the book is named after is an area in the Adirondacks that was set aside and preserved. Wealthy landowners came there for vacation and guides fished and hunted for them and did other chores around the vacation homes. Vanessa and Groves met at Vanessa's parent's vacation home at the Reserve.
Vanessa's mother tries to get Vanessa committed to a hospital in Sweden because she is so unstable and this is where the book takes an odd turn. Vanessa does something to her mother that she can't take back. She then gets her guide involved and eventually Jordon Groves.
The weird thing about this book is that in between the chapters there are 2 page italicized short-stories of completely other things going on around the world: people on foreign military bases, people riding in the Hindenburg and people riding on trains. None of these people are in the main story. It was just weird and I couldn't figure out what the point of these little short stories were.
If you take out these short stories and despite the adultery, the book was actually good. If you aren't a fan of adultery however, you might want to just skip it.
Rating: 6 / 10
ISBN: 9780061430268
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Edition: 1st Paperback Edition