Reviews

The River by Peter Heller

j_m_alexander's review

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 Rapid-paced and rapids filled adventure/thriller of two young bookish outdoorsmen where it's both man versus nature and man versus man - the river is their only hope for salvation, but it might well be what kills them!

“The implacability and violence of nature always awed him. That it could be entirely heedless and yet so beautiful. That awed him. But also its intricate intelligence. Its balancings. Its quiet compensations. It was like some unnamed justice permeated everything. He would not go further than that. Still, the workings of nature made the voracious, self-satiating intelligence of humans seem of the lowest order, not the highest.”

I think this book belongs beside the likes of Master and Commander and The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz on Dad Book Mt Rushmore. I mean it's got fishing and camping and saving someone in distress with a side of tragic outdoorsy backstory and a good helping of nostalgic bookishness and stoicism. I appreciated the sidetracks into bookish territory and the call outs to Deliverance, because Heller knew the comparison would be made, but also quoting the Robert Frost poem Fire and Ice. The wildfire descriptions were something straight out of Dante's Inferno and again the characters were the one's to make these comparisons, which in the context of the characters seemed natural. I was also a fan of the occasional reveries on nature - I totally eat that stuff up.

I felt like the first 50-75 pages or so were weaker and more forced than the rest of the book, the writing is fairly direct/simple and seemed to be at it's best once momentum has been established. I am sure some outdoorsy nerds might love the details about the character's excursions and the specificity of their inventory lists, I found those took me out of the novel. The backstory of Jack surely could have been better woven into the rest of the book, but maybe that's just not Heller's style. Once the pace does start to pick up and the complications pile on, the book absolutely flies. Heller masterfully builds brooding tension through the second half of the book.

Enjoyed, would recommend, but not without some minor quibbling. 

mitskacir's review

4.0

A great audiobook to listen to while driving around Colorado (it doesn't take place there, but the vibe was right). I wasn't hooked by the backstories of the main characters and probably would have liked it more if the narrative focused exclusively on the present plot line, but I understand that the author was trying to make us understand and care about our protagonists. I think the ultimate wrap up of the mystery could have been better, but the book ends up taking a different turn than expected to conclude the story. Overall though, a great mystery and good outdoor adventure story.

zachnachazel's review against another edition

5.0

Well that was intense to say the least. Recommended on an outdoors blog I read I wasn’t expecting this outdoor adventure novel to turn into a crime thriller. I just couldn’t put this one down and basically read it from cover to cover in a day.

passportdog's review

adventurous challenging fast-paced

4.25

croyalbird13's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

2.25

zeotoy's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

angus_mckeogh's review

2.0

An anemic carbon copy of Dickey’s Deliverance. Not terrible but if you’re wanting something in this vein Dickey’s book is the much superior of the two.

pinkalpaca's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

bookph1le's review against another edition

2.0

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this book. On the one hand, I found the central thriller elements compelling and page-turning. On the other, the technical details of fishing and canoeing were just too much for me. There were sentences where the author was describing things in such technical terms that I had no idea what was happening. I imagine those passages would appeal to those who know a lot more about canoeing than I do, but if you're a layman like me, I think you'd feel as bored and lost as I did.

I also wasn't entirely into the author's writing style. He uses a lot of sentence fragments, and I found the disjointedness jarring. In other places, there are long, run-on sentences that made me lose track of what was happening. I'm not sure if I'd call the style entirely stream of consciousness, but it was somewhere on the scale, and that's a style that generally doesn't work for me.

Lastly, I was not a fan of the ending. Just as things were really picking up and getting tense, we ended up with a summary where the author told instead of showed. I also wasn't happy about one of the major plot choices.

This wasn't a bad book, per se, but on the whole it just didn't work all that well for me, which is a shame. I really, really enjoy a good man vs. nature tale, especially when there's an element of man vs. man worked in there, so this book should really have been right up my alley.

lindsayst's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0