Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Go as a River by Shelley Read

63 reviews

cathy61r's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Racism

catalienubbins's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

Wildly different from my usual horror/thriller reads, I took a chance on this debut historical novel, and I'm so glad I did. In the small town of Iola, Colorado in 1948, Victoria Nash grieves the loss of her mother. Left to take care of her insidious brother, apathetic father and crippled uncle, she spends her days on the family's famous and bountiful peach orchard, taking care of the men & tending to the peaches. When her life tangles with a handsome stranger passing through town, it leads her to a way of life that seemed impossible for her. Victoria faces extreme hardships, prejudice and ever-present loneliness as she becomes an independent, emboldened, callous version of herself. Over the course of 30 years, she longs for the things she lost in her youth and she never gives up searching for them. This novel contains some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read. Almost every page contains gorgeous description of Colorado's landscape and nature. Shelley Read's ability to intricately translate levels of grief is beautiful and hard-hitting. While I definitely sobbed through the ending, this novel has my highest recommendation for any historical fiction fans.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder and Racism

emilybee54's review

emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Racism

Moderate: Infertility and Miscarriage

sarahbsews's review

emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Racism, Murder, Torture, Violence, Racial slurs, and Hate crime

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Car accident, Animal death, Blood, Alcoholism, Infertility, and Miscarriage

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. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Domestic abuse, War, Racial slurs, Torture, Sexual content, Miscarriage, and Racism

Minor: War, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

ree333's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Death, Racism, and Violence

sophiestasyna's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Death of parent and War

greatexpectations77's review

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

I have about 4K words of thoughts about this that are more appropriate for elsewhere, but I am absolutely baffled that other reviews didn't mention the fact that this book uses violence against a Native person to prompt personal growth from a white woman. Wil shows up, gets called slurs, has no characterization,

gets Tori pregnant, is vaguely magical, and then dies in less than 100 pages. He only exists to be pined for as like an ethereal being. He is written as essentially something other than human who also provided a baby.

it made me REALLY uncomfortable. Also, I felt like the end was a whole different story that got tacked on. I just cannot believe Read talked to Native folks before writing this book, as she states in her acknowledgements. Because I really feel like she just went and checked off all the tropes of writing about Native people in the kind of "magical Negro" trope. The character is there to further the story, but they're not really a full person. I'm just really mad about this. First time I've been burned by a blind date with a book. Sigh. The action kind of trickles out too. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Abandonment, Bullying, and Child death

Moderate: Pregnancy, Racism, Toxic relationship, Classism, Murder, Blood, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Minor: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Sexual content, War, and Death of parent

mthereader's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Racism, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Abandonment, Miscarriage, Death, Grief, and Infertility

Minor: War

seventhswan's review

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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy and Racism

Moderate: Ableism, Domestic abuse, and War

Minor: Miscarriage, Animal death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, and Sexual violence