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clara_ward's review against another edition
5.0
Would you like some magic with your STEAM? I'm probably a little biased, because years ago I fell in love with making things out of glass, and this story incorporates glass as art, science, and magic. But more importantly, it's about broken things, including broken families, and why it's worth trying to fix them and worth reaching out to both family and friends for help.
And it's beautiful.
Finally, there are birds, monsters, and at least one pony made out of broken and missing items, including towels, scissors, and plastic bags. You will never see recycling the same way again!
And it's beautiful.
Finally, there are birds, monsters, and at least one pony made out of broken and missing items, including towels, scissors, and plastic bags. You will never see recycling the same way again!
beccagomezfarrell's review against another edition
A hard read, emotionally, from a junior higher's perspective about having to keep her younger sister safe from the abuse, emotional and physical, of their parents. It's a fantasy in that the girls enter a dreamworld where all the balls they must keep up in the air to maintain a semblance of normalcy in reality are causing cracks and horrors in the river land dreamland that they must fix. But what I thought Wilde did best with this one is capture the fraught tension, the guilt, and the intense pressure that children put on themselves while living through trauma--the scenes in reality are the ones that held me captive. Recommended if you're in the right head space for that.
novelinsights's review against another edition
4.0
This is a middle grade portal fantasy novel, although it has the interesting distinction of spending a large percentage of the story in the real world and only occasionally going through the portal to the fantasy world. The fantasy world also created more stress in the character's lives than it did fun. This sets Riverland apart from the classic portal fantasies such as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in which the children spend almost the entire book in Narnia and it seems like a travesty that they would ever be expected to return to the real world. That said, the real world of Riverland isn't particularly pleasant, either, and events in one world can have far-reaching effects in the other.
In general, I thought this was a dark yet helpful middle grade book, and unfortunately, I think it could really resonate with a lot of children out there. I am not part of the target audience, yet I will say that I enjoyed it a good bit. I like when kids' books don't shy away from difficult topics or talk down to the reader about them, and this book handled that well.
One of the things that I found a bit peculiar about this book is that I actually found myself significantly more interested in what was happening in the real world than in the fantasy world. This is generally pretty unlike me, and I think it's because the fantasy world lacked the charm and sense of wonder that other fantasy worlds tend to have. The idea of a world full of creatures made of trash and other mundane items was very interesting to me, but as previously mentioned, the protagonists' experiences in this world were all very negative. They dreaded going there, so it was hard for me as the reader to look forward to it. I think if we had spent more time in the fantasy world and had gotten to see some beauty and more positive encounters and adventures, I would have been more attached to the world and felt more positively toward it, but it also would have been a completely different book and maybe it wouldn't have served the same purpose.
I also felt that, to an extent, the magical enemy was dealt with too easily at the end, though this may have been because she was dealt with in a way that hadn't really been previously explained. This made it feel like it happened on the writer's whim and not as something particularly well thought-out on the protagonist's part.
In general, I thought this was a dark yet helpful middle grade book, and unfortunately, I think it could really resonate with a lot of children out there. I am not part of the target audience, yet I will say that I enjoyed it a good bit. I like when kids' books don't shy away from difficult topics or talk down to the reader about them, and this book handled that well.
One of the things that I found a bit peculiar about this book is that I actually found myself significantly more interested in what was happening in the real world than in the fantasy world. This is generally pretty unlike me, and I think it's because the fantasy world lacked the charm and sense of wonder that other fantasy worlds tend to have. The idea of a world full of creatures made of trash and other mundane items was very interesting to me, but as previously mentioned, the protagonists' experiences in this world were all very negative. They dreaded going there, so it was hard for me as the reader to look forward to it. I think if we had spent more time in the fantasy world and had gotten to see some beauty and more positive encounters and adventures, I would have been more attached to the world and felt more positively toward it, but it also would have been a completely different book and maybe it wouldn't have served the same purpose.
I also felt that, to an extent, the magical enemy was dealt with too easily at the end, though this may have been because she was dealt with in a way that hadn't really been previously explained. This made it feel like it happened on the writer's whim and not as something particularly well thought-out on the protagonist's part.
anjreading's review against another edition
4.0
I picked this up after learning it won the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction a few days ago. It is not an easy read, as it’s a portal fantasy about domestic violence, but it is such a powerful story told so well. Eleanor and her younger sister Mike have endless rules that they try to follow to stay safe, and more often than not they end up hiding under Eleanor’s bed, telling each other stories while trying to avoid their father’s temper and their mother’s complicity. One night, when their father breaks a family heirloom, a river appears under the bed, and the girls are swept away to a world of nightmares and dreams. A moving and poignant story that does offer up rays of hope even in the midst of darkness.
liacooper's review
4.0
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
4*
It's weird to say I enjoyed reading this book because it does focus on some incredibly serious topics, but I did enjoy it. I was thoroughly swept up in it. It resonated with me on a deeply personal level because, while I won't go into specifics here, I can say that I saw my childhood self represented by Eleanor and the struggles she goes through with her parents, in particular her emotionally abusive father.
This is a Middle Grade contemporary/fantasy story that flips back and forth between our world and an imaginary Riverland made up of dreams and nightmares. Our protagonists fall into the Riverland after their father spends yet another evening rampaging through their house, blaming the girls for stuff outside their control and breaking important familiar artifacts. This kicks off an increasing problem where cracks start splitting between the world of Riverland and the girls' home reality, turning an already tense homelife into an increasing pressure cooker and burdening a 12 and 7 year old with the task of trying to be "good enough" to hold their homelife together.
This book deals with emotional and physical abuse. It won't be for everyone and definitely consider trigger warnings for angry and emotionally abusive parents. That being said, I do think it's a valuable story and easily something I would give to a kid suffering in similar settings or for in general any young reader who likes portal fantasies.
You can hear more of my thoughts about Riverland by checking out my full video review down below.
Link to full video review: https://youtu.be/KOWuEvH6zMc
4*
It's weird to say I enjoyed reading this book because it does focus on some incredibly serious topics, but I did enjoy it. I was thoroughly swept up in it. It resonated with me on a deeply personal level because, while I won't go into specifics here, I can say that I saw my childhood self represented by Eleanor and the struggles she goes through with her parents, in particular her emotionally abusive father.
This is a Middle Grade contemporary/fantasy story that flips back and forth between our world and an imaginary Riverland made up of dreams and nightmares. Our protagonists fall into the Riverland after their father spends yet another evening rampaging through their house, blaming the girls for stuff outside their control and breaking important familiar artifacts. This kicks off an increasing problem where cracks start splitting between the world of Riverland and the girls' home reality, turning an already tense homelife into an increasing pressure cooker and burdening a 12 and 7 year old with the task of trying to be "good enough" to hold their homelife together.
This book deals with emotional and physical abuse. It won't be for everyone and definitely consider trigger warnings for angry and emotionally abusive parents. That being said, I do think it's a valuable story and easily something I would give to a kid suffering in similar settings or for in general any young reader who likes portal fantasies.
You can hear more of my thoughts about Riverland by checking out my full video review down below.
Link to full video review: https://youtu.be/KOWuEvH6zMc
smoakwithwifi's review
2.0
It says something when the set-your-teeth-on-edge, utterly depressing frame story about domestic abuse is a far more engaging narrative than the portal fantasy
secre's review against another edition
3.0
This is one of those books that has a stunning premise behind it and I think it talks about some really important issues with sensitivity and grace. I really wanted to love it, and had it been set completely in the real world, I think I would have. Unfortunately the large segments that involve the dream world just didn't work for me at all and perhaps more importantly, I don't think they melded very well with the real world. It felt forced, the two halves not quite fitting together well enough.
Eleanor and Mike and two sisters who share a secret. The secret is house magic; things that are broken or lost are fixed or replaced if you just keep the rules. Or at least that is what Eleanor tells Mike and Mike is young enough to believe her. The fact is though that the rules are important, but not for the reasons Mike believes. If you break the rules, if you make trouble, then dad gets angry. And when dad gets angry, things get broken, mum gets hit and punishments happen.
Fran Wilde does a stunning job at depicting the girl's reality; a life of broken glass, whispers and hiding under the bed. The ways in which Eleanor has found to cope and to shield Mike from the worst of the abuse are starkly portrayed. The ways both girl's perceptions of the world have been skewed and altered by the turbulence of their home life is heart-breaking. The way they dance around the issues with other adults, take the blame on themselves and try to navigate the tight-rope of their father's anger is hauntingly portrayed. I cannot fault these sections of the book.
Where things fall down is in the portal fantasy aspect of the book. At night, Eleanor and Mike find a world in desperate straights through the cracks and the leaks between the worlds. And it just didn't work for me. I was invested in the real world conflict that the girl's were embroiled in, but the whole 'save a fantasy world' bit just didn't sit right. I could see some of the parallels between the fantasy and the reality, but even then they just didn't work well together. And because of this, I felt forced out of the aspect of the story I was really engaged with and into this fantasy world I honestly didn't really care about.
Part of the issue is going to be in how unsubstantial this dream like fantasy is. You get some descriptions of the river, the lighthouse and the tunnels, but it never really came together into a place I could truly imagine. Likewise, whilst the characters in the real world felt stunningly real for good and for ill, the characters in the dream world never quite became fully formed. Perhaps this was deliberate; after all, it's meant to be a world of dreams and of nightmares, but it just didn't work for me.
Perhaps some of my disconnect with the dream world sections come from my own upbringing and how much I related to the real events of the novel. My situation was different in many ways, but I felt a visceral reaction to Eleanor trying so hard to feel normal and yet pushing others away in her attempts to keep the reality of her home life a secret. Wilde captured many of the fears and thoughts I had as a child, as you pretend so hard and make so many excuses. It felt completely real to me, so the fuzzy unreality of the fantasy world stood out all the more starkly.
So this is a book of two halves for me. The sections where the girls are in the real world are stunning. Beautifully written, hauntingly real and starkly depicted so I felt as though I were stood beside Eleanor at times. Her fear, uncertainly and anger resound off the page. Her doubts of her own self-worth, belief that her father must be right about her, desperation to not let her mother down and keep the rules in order to maintain some semblance of normality really struck me. But the dream world just didn't do anything for me. If this had been almost entirely set in the real world, I suspect it would be an easy five stars. But it's not. And it feels like two uneven halves jammed together and forced to try and fit.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.
Eleanor and Mike and two sisters who share a secret. The secret is house magic; things that are broken or lost are fixed or replaced if you just keep the rules. Or at least that is what Eleanor tells Mike and Mike is young enough to believe her. The fact is though that the rules are important, but not for the reasons Mike believes. If you break the rules, if you make trouble, then dad gets angry. And when dad gets angry, things get broken, mum gets hit and punishments happen.
Fran Wilde does a stunning job at depicting the girl's reality; a life of broken glass, whispers and hiding under the bed. The ways in which Eleanor has found to cope and to shield Mike from the worst of the abuse are starkly portrayed. The ways both girl's perceptions of the world have been skewed and altered by the turbulence of their home life is heart-breaking. The way they dance around the issues with other adults, take the blame on themselves and try to navigate the tight-rope of their father's anger is hauntingly portrayed. I cannot fault these sections of the book.
Where things fall down is in the portal fantasy aspect of the book. At night, Eleanor and Mike find a world in desperate straights through the cracks and the leaks between the worlds. And it just didn't work for me. I was invested in the real world conflict that the girl's were embroiled in, but the whole 'save a fantasy world' bit just didn't sit right. I could see some of the parallels between the fantasy and the reality, but even then they just didn't work well together. And because of this, I felt forced out of the aspect of the story I was really engaged with and into this fantasy world I honestly didn't really care about.
Part of the issue is going to be in how unsubstantial this dream like fantasy is. You get some descriptions of the river, the lighthouse and the tunnels, but it never really came together into a place I could truly imagine. Likewise, whilst the characters in the real world felt stunningly real for good and for ill, the characters in the dream world never quite became fully formed. Perhaps this was deliberate; after all, it's meant to be a world of dreams and of nightmares, but it just didn't work for me.
Perhaps some of my disconnect with the dream world sections come from my own upbringing and how much I related to the real events of the novel. My situation was different in many ways, but I felt a visceral reaction to Eleanor trying so hard to feel normal and yet pushing others away in her attempts to keep the reality of her home life a secret. Wilde captured many of the fears and thoughts I had as a child, as you pretend so hard and make so many excuses. It felt completely real to me, so the fuzzy unreality of the fantasy world stood out all the more starkly.
So this is a book of two halves for me. The sections where the girls are in the real world are stunning. Beautifully written, hauntingly real and starkly depicted so I felt as though I were stood beside Eleanor at times. Her fear, uncertainly and anger resound off the page. Her doubts of her own self-worth, belief that her father must be right about her, desperation to not let her mother down and keep the rules in order to maintain some semblance of normality really struck me. But the dream world just didn't do anything for me. If this had been almost entirely set in the real world, I suspect it would be an easy five stars. But it's not. And it feels like two uneven halves jammed together and forced to try and fit.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.
deby's review against another edition
3.0
This book feels quite young at times. The fantasy portions seem to be directed at a younger audience than the "real world" portions. But the emotions of the characters have stuck with me, especially their desperation to keep their world together.
nataliya_x's review against another edition
2.0
The premise was interesting, and I bet that’s what got this book the Andre Norton Nebula Award (“baby Nebula”, basically). The problem was the execution. And as a result I struggled quite a bit to finish this book, and would have abandoned it if not for my Hugo-Nebula reading project this year.
This is a middle-grade fantasy (or perhaps magical realism) novel centered on domestic violence and the ways children create to cope with it. Twelve-year-old Eleanor is trying to protect her seven-year-old sister Mike by inventing the stories of magic - including house magic that fixes broken things that follow heated arguments with their emotionally and physically abusive father as long as they painstakingly follow the rules that their abusive parents lay down - the rules aimed at pacifying the abuser and creating a happy image of this very broken family to the outsiders and authority figures. Except that it turns out that magic is indeed real, and there is a river under Eleanor’s bed that takes the girls to Riverland, where dreams are born, and nightmares are trying to escape into the reality as the borders between dreams and reality crack - partially because in a fit of rage the girls’ father breaks a magical object that used to help maintain the integrity of those borders. It’s up to Eleanor and Mike to find the ways to repair the damage and to uphold the ancient magical agreement.
Fran Wilde does a decent job showing the insidious ways Eleanor and Mike’s thinking and perception of the world are altered by living in an abusive family. Her father is mostly emotionally abusive to girls, although there are physical elements as well revealed as the story progresses, and is clearly physically abusive to their mother who has put so much into simulating any kind of normalcy where there is none that she has become quite complicit in the situation, although she still tries to protect the girls somewhat, but yet doles out the blame to them for upsetting the abuser. And you start seeing this habitual violence even in the girls’ interactions with each other, which is heartbreaking.
Where things fall apart is the fantasy part of the story. The Riverland on the other side of reality, that you can reach through the river under the bed and escape on the beam of the lighthouse, where dreams are born and nightmares grow and crabs and Heron are battling the evils. It’s interesting and dreamlike and yet constructed with the sloppy fuzziness that does not allow for full immersion in the story. The descriptions are vague, perhaps in an attempt to convey the dreamlike quality, making the scenes, especially the action ones, unclear and constantly interrupted by Eleanor’s internal monologue, leading to a very choppy effect. It’s barely sketched out, simplistic, with no room for subtlety or nuance but enough room for muddily unclear storytelling. I consider myself well-versed in fantasy worlds, but even this did not help make the world of the River more clear. Which is too bad, as its haunted surreal atmosphere was shaping up to be promising.
Perhaps it’s this jarring disconnection with the fantasy world part that left me cold and unengaged. Every time I started to feel like I cared and was getting angry at the very difficult situation the girls were in, the story would jump to the fantasy world and the not-caring annoyance would come over me again. There is supposed to be the sense of urgency here, but I honestly felt more engaged in the real-world bits that addressed the preparation for a boring science fair, which says a lot. The real-world parts and the fantasy-world parts felt like they belonged in different books, with little uniting them, with disparate pacing and stakes and very tenuous connections. The story just lacked cohesiveness and therefore ended up just messy.
2.5 stars.
————
Ugh, it’s my third 2-star read in a row. I need to get out of this book rut...
————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3295830569
“At home, every time I lost my temper, things got worse. When Poppa lost his temper, things broke. If you can’t control your temper, Eleanor, you’ll be just like him. Momma had said this so many times.”
This is a middle-grade fantasy (or perhaps magical realism) novel centered on domestic violence and the ways children create to cope with it. Twelve-year-old Eleanor is trying to protect her seven-year-old sister Mike by inventing the stories of magic - including house magic that fixes broken things that follow heated arguments with their emotionally and physically abusive father as long as they painstakingly follow the rules that their abusive parents lay down - the rules aimed at pacifying the abuser and creating a happy image of this very broken family to the outsiders and authority figures. Except that it turns out that magic is indeed real, and there is a river under Eleanor’s bed that takes the girls to Riverland, where dreams are born, and nightmares are trying to escape into the reality as the borders between dreams and reality crack - partially because in a fit of rage the girls’ father breaks a magical object that used to help maintain the integrity of those borders. It’s up to Eleanor and Mike to find the ways to repair the damage and to uphold the ancient magical agreement.
“I’d never thought about magic as an agreement before. It made an uncomfortable kind of sense. Even a small magic that anyone could do needed someone on each side: someone to cast the spell and someone to believe in it.”
Fran Wilde does a decent job showing the insidious ways Eleanor and Mike’s thinking and perception of the world are altered by living in an abusive family. Her father is mostly emotionally abusive to girls, although there are physical elements as well revealed as the story progresses, and is clearly physically abusive to their mother who has put so much into simulating any kind of normalcy where there is none that she has become quite complicit in the situation, although she still tries to protect the girls somewhat, but yet doles out the blame to them for upsetting the abuser. And you start seeing this habitual violence even in the girls’ interactions with each other, which is heartbreaking.
“What could I ask her? Did you ever battle nightmares? Ever try to keep dreams from leaking through to reality?”
Where things fall apart is the fantasy part of the story. The Riverland on the other side of reality, that you can reach through the river under the bed and escape on the beam of the lighthouse, where dreams are born and nightmares grow and crabs and Heron are battling the evils. It’s interesting and dreamlike and yet constructed with the sloppy fuzziness that does not allow for full immersion in the story. The descriptions are vague, perhaps in an attempt to convey the dreamlike quality, making the scenes, especially the action ones, unclear and constantly interrupted by Eleanor’s internal monologue, leading to a very choppy effect. It’s barely sketched out, simplistic, with no room for subtlety or nuance but enough room for muddily unclear storytelling. I consider myself well-versed in fantasy worlds, but even this did not help make the world of the River more clear. Which is too bad, as its haunted surreal atmosphere was shaping up to be promising.
Perhaps it’s this jarring disconnection with the fantasy world part that left me cold and unengaged. Every time I started to feel like I cared and was getting angry at the very difficult situation the girls were in, the story would jump to the fantasy world and the not-caring annoyance would come over me again. There is supposed to be the sense of urgency here, but I honestly felt more engaged in the real-world bits that addressed the preparation for a boring science fair, which says a lot. The real-world parts and the fantasy-world parts felt like they belonged in different books, with little uniting them, with disparate pacing and stakes and very tenuous connections. The story just lacked cohesiveness and therefore ended up just messy.
2.5 stars.
————
Ugh, it’s my third 2-star read in a row. I need to get out of this book rut...
————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3295830569