The New York Times called the novel "an involving and sneakily touching story whose twists feel less like the conventions of a genre than the convolutions of a heart—any heart."
The Washington Post called Drives Like a Dream “a beautiful novel, carefully put together, full of charming secondary characters, charitable to all.” Shreve's third novel, When the White House Was Ours, was published during the 2008 presidential campaign and touches upon previous election years, including 2000 and 1976.
The Washington Post wrote, "Coming-of-age tales that hark back to lovable, quaint times all too often cover the landscape and the characters with a thick dusting of powdered sugar.
It is the story of an aspiring contemporary novelist who is writing a sequel to a forgotten classic, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and goes back and forth in time between turn of the century and present day Chicago.
The Washington Post wrote, "Anderson’s classic is the linchpin holding together the two halves of Porter Shreve’s excellent new novel, The End of the Book.