Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - The River Has Teeth

A beautifully haunting story about female rage, The River Has Teeth has so much to offer: witches, monsters, sapphic romance, family trauma, mystery, and more.
The writing style, plot, and characters were all easy to become immersed in. I cannot say enough positive things about this book. There are very little things that I wish the author did better and I was pretty much hooked from the moment I read the dedication.
This one is for us who have been made prey. The River Has Teeth. And so do we.

Content Warnings

displacedcactus's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

This book was fine. I suspect it will hit better with its target YA audience. As an adult reader I found it a bit predictable and found the character work a little rough. I do always appreciate a bit of feminine rage in a book, though, and I liked how the murder ballads were worked into the story. Plus the story is sapphic and I believe one or both of the female MCs are bi.

Like many books I've read recently, I also felt like the pace really could have used a little tightening. This book had a pretty soggy middle (like a river?). Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm feeling extra impatient with books this summer.

By the way, depending on which site you see this book on, it'll be listed as either a mystery, a dark fantasy, or a horror. For me, it read the most like a horror. There's some horrific things going on here, the setting has real Southern Gothic vibes, and while they are trying to solve the mystery of the missing girls, it definitely feels less like a "whodunnit" and more like a "creepy things in the woods" vibe.

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lostinworlds's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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silvae's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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nodogsonthemoon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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mediocremasen's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Great premise, interesting characters, fun setting/world, boring execution.
I had so much hope for this book and it just fell flat. I was so bored for the first half of the book, maybe more.
It felt like stuff was always happening but none of it really matters. It felt like the entire first half was setting the stage for the book instead of actually being the story.
The characters were also a bit inconsistent and I think if she had committed to making them a bit more sinister like some of their actions showed, it would have been very compelling.
Shifts in the story and in the characters were very abrupt. There wasn't a lot of transition from point A to point B on several different things, it was just suddenly it changed with no real build up of any kind so it didn't really feel satisfying either.
Not a bad book, just a lot of lost potential.

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kace's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

b_lownds127's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

2.75

I didn't realize this was YA at first, but once I did I continued because I do often enjoy YA fantasy and this has a really intriguing plot and premise. Where it started to fall apart for me was the over-the-top southern breathiness of the narrator for Della and then the incredibly annoying character of Natasha. The character of Natasha was, like many heroines, driven by vengeance and unwilling to accept any facts that didn't fit into her own perceptions and theories but she was ALSO so easily misslead by red herrings that I as the reader figured out the entire mystery and villain by 50% and just felt as if I was waiting around for the characters to catch up. There were also 3 passages that felt not so much like dialogue but as if they had been lifted, stiff and protesting, from a Wikipedia article on missing and murdered women. Please don't misunderstand me - the author was valiantly trying to talk about important things, but the overall effect did not feel organic within the novel. The romance was a bit too insta-love for me too, though i adored the LGTBQIA+ representation.

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