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gtbenathan's review against another edition
4.0
This is a solid 4.5 stars. Very good story and the characters were so real. The interactions between them evoked such wonderful emotion. The family dynamics were incredibly real (and a little scarring) while the other world was dynamic and full. High recommend!
petermedeiros1988's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
ecath's review against another edition
5.0
Fran Wilde’s Riverland was a hard book to read, but at the same time, I could not put it down, read it in a week. I needed to know that Eleanor and Mike would be okay. And of course, they are. That’s not a spoiler, because you don’t yet know the hows of Riverland, how the sisters come to the river, who they find there, and what they discover in themselves.
You know home when you get there. Eleanor and Mike know, too. Sometimes home isn’t a building, but a place, a place where you have the time and space to figure yourself out. How you work, and how you live, and how you breathe. Home can be a story, in a book or in a song, or home can be in the places you make for yourself.
We don’t normally tell these stories about girls. We don’t show girls rescuing themselves nearly enough. If I’d had this book as a kid, would it have changed something? Would I have found the strength to say something? Maybe not — at that age, it’s so hard — but seeing someone extract themselves from a similar position would have been like the beam of a lighthouse at night.
You know home when you get there. Eleanor and Mike know, too. Sometimes home isn’t a building, but a place, a place where you have the time and space to figure yourself out. How you work, and how you live, and how you breathe. Home can be a story, in a book or in a song, or home can be in the places you make for yourself.
We don’t normally tell these stories about girls. We don’t show girls rescuing themselves nearly enough. If I’d had this book as a kid, would it have changed something? Would I have found the strength to say something? Maybe not — at that age, it’s so hard — but seeing someone extract themselves from a similar position would have been like the beam of a lighthouse at night.
booksliketrouble's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 rounded up to 3. I just couldn’t get into this one, even though I really wanted to. I applaud YA that gets readers into fantasy genre, and I hope this works for some young readers!
hbc72's review against another edition
4.0
"'There's no happily ever after,' she whispered, 'and there are monsters, and that's not fair. But once upon a time, there were two sisters who rescued each other.'"
This, my friends, is a beautiful story. Part magic, part real, part dream, but all the way beautiful.
This, my friends, is a beautiful story. Part magic, part real, part dream, but all the way beautiful.
juliusmoose's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This book is a great depiction of what it's like to be 12 and living in a home with an abusive dad. Felt really spot-on. The magic was cool too!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse
mariahaskins's review against another edition
5.0
This book is wild and wondrous, it is terrifying and true, and it is its very own magic.
This is a book for kids. It's also a book for adults, whether you remember, forgot, or never knew what it's like to be a child in danger. It's also very much a book that captures the reality of how kids, siblings especially maybe, can take care of, and feel a deep responsibility for, each other and for their family in a way that can be hard to understand for outsiders and adults.
That sense of kids trying to hold the world together, of fixing the cracks in their reality through sheer force of will and imagination. that sense of "if I say it is so, then it will be"... is captured so well. As I found this morning, it's very hard to put this book down.
"There's no happily ever after....and there are monsters, and that's not fair. But once upon a time, there were two sisters who rescued each other."
"And we kept on doing that, until we didn't need to anymore...."
This is a book for kids. It's also a book for adults, whether you remember, forgot, or never knew what it's like to be a child in danger. It's also very much a book that captures the reality of how kids, siblings especially maybe, can take care of, and feel a deep responsibility for, each other and for their family in a way that can be hard to understand for outsiders and adults.
That sense of kids trying to hold the world together, of fixing the cracks in their reality through sheer force of will and imagination. that sense of "if I say it is so, then it will be"... is captured so well. As I found this morning, it's very hard to put this book down.
"There's no happily ever after....and there are monsters, and that's not fair. But once upon a time, there were two sisters who rescued each other."
"And we kept on doing that, until we didn't need to anymore...."
marziesreads's review
5.0
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
My reaction to this book is deeply personal. From its opening passages, which I found excruciatingly familiar, I felt a kinship with the rituals of safety- the house rules, and the magic that these rules invoke for making a fragile home "peaceful." Anyone who knows what it is like to not be able to explain to a friend why they can't come to your house, especially without advance planning. Anyone who has lived with all the rules about what you can say and not say, who you talk to and what you never reveal, will find this book resonates with them. It paints a haunting picture of children's perceptions of domestic abuse.
Riverland is about El and Mike, two sisters who come from an unhappy family. We see the carefully circumscribed world the sisters live in, with all its rules centered on palliating an aggressive Poppa, and their Momma's magic, which holds the home and family together in ways that children will grow to question over the course of the book. But that's only part of this story. Their house, their family, and soon, their magic, is broken, culminating in a mysterious river leaking under El's bed. Since under the bed is a favorite hiding place (again, familiar) it's only natural that when Mike falls in, El dives in after her, taking care of her baby sister, just as she always has done. What they find is another secret world, another one in which agreements and rules were made without their knowledge or understanding. The magic of that world is intimately linked to the house magic of their own world. The alternate world is filled with 'mares (nightmares) and terrifying figures. But is it as bad as the world that El and Mike come home to every day after school? What does it mean when you feel safer in an alt-world than in your own home? The fantasy elements of the story, which in some ways feel more like elements of magical realism (in the tradition of Allende, for example), present the girls with the means to transform their situation.
This is an emotionally complex book that would be the perfect summer reading assignment for middle-grade students. It's a novel about healing hearts, navigating difficult family circumstances, about learning to speak out, upholding agreements, and doing what is right.
My reaction to this book is deeply personal. From its opening passages, which I found excruciatingly familiar, I felt a kinship with the rituals of safety- the house rules, and the magic that these rules invoke for making a fragile home "peaceful." Anyone who knows what it is like to not be able to explain to a friend why they can't come to your house, especially without advance planning. Anyone who has lived with all the rules about what you can say and not say, who you talk to and what you never reveal, will find this book resonates with them. It paints a haunting picture of children's perceptions of domestic abuse.
Riverland is about El and Mike, two sisters who come from an unhappy family. We see the carefully circumscribed world the sisters live in, with all its rules centered on palliating an aggressive Poppa, and their Momma's magic, which holds the home and family together in ways that children will grow to question over the course of the book. But that's only part of this story. Their house, their family, and soon, their magic, is broken, culminating in a mysterious river leaking under El's bed. Since under the bed is a favorite hiding place (again, familiar) it's only natural that when Mike falls in, El dives in after her, taking care of her baby sister, just as she always has done. What they find is another secret world, another one in which agreements and rules were made without their knowledge or understanding. The magic of that world is intimately linked to the house magic of their own world. The alternate world is filled with 'mares (nightmares) and terrifying figures. But is it as bad as the world that El and Mike come home to every day after school? What does it mean when you feel safer in an alt-world than in your own home? The fantasy elements of the story, which in some ways feel more like elements of magical realism (in the tradition of Allende, for example), present the girls with the means to transform their situation.
This is an emotionally complex book that would be the perfect summer reading assignment for middle-grade students. It's a novel about healing hearts, navigating difficult family circumstances, about learning to speak out, upholding agreements, and doing what is right.
triscuit807's review
5.0
4.5-5 stars. Sometimes it's necessary that books are not comfortable. Eleanor and Mike are sisters, (7th and 3rd grade) who have a truth that they cannot tell anyone. Nightly Eleanor takes shelter with beneath her bed with Mike and together they tell a story, a story that maybe someday their parents will be back and there won't be a troll in the house. They can't tell anyone about the "house magic" that causes broken things to come back or be replaced, but Mike is young and can't be quiet. Eleanor tries to fix things, but the magic fishing float has been broken and hasn't been fixed/replaced. There is a river beneath her bed complete with a lighthouse, nightmares, and a clockwork heron. And it starts to leak into her house and in the neighboring houses too - can Eleanor fix this? This is a novel of courage and love in the face of abuse. I read this for my 2020 Reading Challenge (Swords/Stars "portal fantasy") and the 2020 Hugo nominations (Lodestar YA).