sorman0110's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing writing! I love his depictions of flawed characters, full of love, anguish, desperation, and hope! Set in a post apocalyptic world where the government has decided to create “the line.” Anyone living along the coastlines of gulf coast communities from Texas to Florida, will have no law, electricity, running water, support, or help in anyway. Post Hurricane Katrina, the hurricanes have continued to ravage the area and it has been raining nonstop for over 600 days, so evacuation becomes mandatory or deal with life that is lawless.
The ending is hopeful and I cared about his characters immensely. Fast paced and action filled! Highly recommend!
The ending is hopeful and I cared about his characters immensely. Fast paced and action filled! Highly recommend!
rissaleighs's review against another edition
4.0
It's like As I Lay Dying meets Cormac McCarthy. One drawn out, absorbing gut punch. I'm very familiar with the setting of this book, know all the towns mentioned, have driven the roads described. So to see the author's apocalyptic vision layered over real places that I know was extra compelling. I'm not sure if the book would have had quite the same impact if I had not spent a couple years of my life driving on Hwy 49 every day....I didn't really love the characters, to be honest, so I was a little surprised to find myself feeling so invested in their journey and rooting for them to make it to safety. Hats off to the author.
reneesuz's review against another edition
2.0
I requested this book from the Amazon Vine program since it was written by a professor at my dd's college and is the common reading initiative for this coming school year. I tried; I really tried but it didn't hold my attention. It's not a bad book it's just not a genre that works for me.
danchrist's review against another edition
3.0
An above average yarn, but nothing on the level of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." I wanted to give it a four, and maybe it deserved the fourth star for the characters, but the prose was so flat I just couldn't. Decent yarn, and little else.
misterfix's review against another edition
4.0
I have a thing for dystopian books - heck, apparently so do a lot of folks. Can't imagine why? Oh yeah, look around.
This one was superior to the majority that I have read in that genre. Characters were believably sympathetic and not super heroes. Their flaws and weakness, illustrated by the motivations and decision making processes, made the story shine and left me satisfied.
That's all I have to offer - go read it.
This one was superior to the majority that I have read in that genre. Characters were believably sympathetic and not super heroes. Their flaws and weakness, illustrated by the motivations and decision making processes, made the story shine and left me satisfied.
That's all I have to offer - go read it.
mazza57's review against another edition
3.0
Atmospheric opening language which uses repetition to create stresses. Almost a modern day Noah's ark but not as convivial. The people were driven by basic needs such as hunger and shelter and violence is always there. A bit lengthy and lost its power at times.
toddtyrtle's review against another edition
3.0
Very entertaining. I didn't really like the characters but the world was so compelling I could barely put this down. I want to know more about what's happening in the world the author has created.
lalamc's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
prcizmadia's review against another edition
5.0
Continuing my Post Apocalyptic American Tour, this time in the Mississippi Delta, another bit of great writing about living through a punishing world. I like Smith's writing as it's sometimes how I think and hear myself-- sparing, observant, inward, and only subtly expressive. It's more of a story than it says on the cover, a deeper immersion, and I found myself pulled along by the narrative flow. It's a hard world, one that is dominated by the hard choices, and the honesty of the characters, and thus the author, is something I enjoyed.
I just love having a narrator that isn't as caught up on himself as Cohen. He's a man that does what he has to do and suffers in silence. I'm glad I got to ride along with him, even through his pain and the floods. Definitely worth reading.
I just love having a narrator that isn't as caught up on himself as Cohen. He's a man that does what he has to do and suffers in silence. I'm glad I got to ride along with him, even through his pain and the floods. Definitely worth reading.
smasler's review against another edition
5.0
Micahel Farris Smith has written an adult dystopian near-future view of the Gulf coast of the U.S. ravaged by a a never-ending series of hurricanes. Damages from the storm have so devastated the coast that the government has drawn a line, ninety miles north, below which no services or protection will be offered. Although most people choose to take government buyouts and resettlements, some cannot because of the chains of their loss or because they have become prisoners of their refusal to believe that the chaos around them is real. For Cohen, it is the weight of loss that causes him to live in an obsessive cycle of loneliness and hopeless attempts to rebuild what he has lost. His cycles continue until he is attacked by members of a strange cult run by a once-charismatic snake handler who now relies on terrorism to hold a group of women hostage to form a new world. Cohen trails the cult members back to their FEMA trailor compound where he unwitting becomes a new Moses, leading his tribe out of the drowned desert of the South.
Rivers is an allegory of Katrina, where people survived nature but were abandonded by their government. It is the story of loss...of love, of the land, of livelihoods and hope. But it is also a story of survival and redemption in a hopeless battle against man made natural disaster and man-made cultural chaos.
Smith's complex characters develop well beyond the usual single dimensions common in post-apocalyptic fiction. It is tempting to compare this book to Carmac McCarthy's "The Road," but such a comparison is a disservice to both "Rivers" and "The Road." McCarthy never gives a a reason for the disaster that has driven his characters to their dystopian nightmare and there is no way out of the destruction. Smith's world is a disaster caused by human interference with nature and by human nature which causes self-inflicted terrors beyond those thrown at the characters by the never ending storms.
Rivers is an allegory of Katrina, where people survived nature but were abandonded by their government. It is the story of loss...of love, of the land, of livelihoods and hope. But it is also a story of survival and redemption in a hopeless battle against man made natural disaster and man-made cultural chaos.
Smith's complex characters develop well beyond the usual single dimensions common in post-apocalyptic fiction. It is tempting to compare this book to Carmac McCarthy's "The Road," but such a comparison is a disservice to both "Rivers" and "The Road." McCarthy never gives a a reason for the disaster that has driven his characters to their dystopian nightmare and there is no way out of the destruction. Smith's world is a disaster caused by human interference with nature and by human nature which causes self-inflicted terrors beyond those thrown at the characters by the never ending storms.