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zreadz's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I enjoyed this book. It was tough to get through the tragedy of Victoria’s life at first and it left me fearing for the worst at each page turn, but I think it wrapped up nicely in the end. I really enjoyed the authors descriptive language when talking about nature and the wilderness, tying these elements with love, fate and destiny. I just wish the pacing was a little better. The story went in a different direction than I thought it would based on the first half of the book but I still enjoyed it! It was a nice and heartfelt read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and War
Minor: Car accident and Alcohol
beccajreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
4.0
This was tough to read at times, but beautiful too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Violence, and Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Torture, and War
Minor: Vomit, Medical trauma, War, and Injury/Injury detail
seventhswan's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I can appreciate that Go as a River is a beautifully descriptive, thematically complex book that a lot of people will really enjoy, but despite seeing this logically, I didn't particularly like it. The first half of the story was tediously slow - I enjoyed the second half a lot more, but they felt like different books to me. I also found that a lot of nuance, depth, and sympathy was given to characters like Victoria's father and brother, while more interesting characters like Wil and Ruby-Alice were deprived of agency and left quite one-dimensional. Their portrayals didn't match with what Victoria claimed to feel about them. And, honestly, I just didn't care about or connect with Victoria that much even though she was objectively going through many difficult things. Pretty much every other character seemed to have a more interesting perspective on what was going on.
The descriptions of the book's setting and the changing time periods were the highlights of this story for me, and I did feel emotional in places purely because of the amounts of suffering various characters went through. However, everything wrapped up so neatly and relied on so many improbable coincidences that it was just not a book that really worked for me.
The descriptions of the book's setting and the changing time periods were the highlights of this story for me, and I did feel emotional in places purely because of the amounts of suffering various characters went through. However, everything wrapped up so neatly and relied on so many improbable coincidences that it was just not a book that really worked for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Pregnancy
Moderate: Ableism, Domestic abuse, and War
Minor: Animal death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Misogyny, and Sexual violence