Review by bookish_leslie - What the River Knows

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bookish_leslie 's review for:

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez

3.25

adventurous mysterious

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Rating this book 3.25 stars (which, for me, usually means it's meh/okay) doesn't feel like an accurate representation of my reading experience, but when I combined the parts I disliked in this book with the parts I really enjoyed, my rating met somewhere in the middle.

First things first: the cover was gorgeous, and I also enjoyed the handful of drawings inside the book.

I LOVED the Egyptian vibes. In fact, the atmosphere/setting (and how it was written about) was one of my favourite parts of this whole book, and I wish Ibañez had chosen to lean more into this, as well as the archeology aspects of this book - the temples and tombs, the search, the dig - rather than the repetitiveness of the romance storyline.

The plot/adventure was really interesting and engaging when it finally started to pick up about halfway through, and I also enjoyed the themes of adventure, family, legacy, and cultural heritage.

However, the pacing for me was really inconsistent, as I’ve just alluded to. The book dragged at the beginning, where nothing much happened for close to 150 pages. After that, the mystery and adventure picked up, but, much like a stone rolling down a hill and building momentum as it goes, so much was happening by the end of the book, and so quickly, that it felt like rushed chaos. There were many gaps, and I had so many lingering questions.

And don’t get me started on that ending. First of all, without spoiling anything, there was a certain plot point involving Whit that had been hounded home throughout the book, and then that obstacle suddenly ceased to exist somehow, with no explanation whatsoever. What??

And then there was that epilogue that ended on “To be continued…” I loathe cliffhangers. For me, they feel manipulative, like the author has to rely on curiosity to push book sales because they’re not confident in their writing. If you’ve done your job well enough, I’ll want to continue reading the series, without the need for a cliffhanger. In fact, I’m less likely to continue reading the next book after a major cliffhanger, just out of spite. But that’s probably just a me thing.

Aside from the pacing issues and the annoyingly mysterious ending, the book suffered from a lot of repetition, I saw the “twist” coming a mile away, and there was a particularly violent scene that didn’t feel in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book.

If, like me, you’re especially sensitive to or enraged by sexism and misogyny, also know that this book can be wildly triggering. That’s not the author’s problem or fault, of course, but rather an unfortunate reflection of the time period in which this book was set. There was one scene involving Inez's ring, for example, that I read right before bed. It provoked so much anger that I was left stewing in my fury, unable to fall asleep until after 4am.

Last note: I’m sad to say that I didn’t really like most of the characters, including the three main characters, Inez, Whit, and Tío Ricardo.

INEZ: I liked that Inez was a POC character from Argentina, and I appreciated that she was feisty, tenacious, and resourceful, refusing to let the men in her life push her around and control her. But she was unbelievably reckless and stupid much of the time and didn’t seem to ever learn from her mistakes. She also had the annoying habit of taking responsibility for everyone else’s actions and mistakes, and acting in ways that contradicted her thoughts. And her interest in Whit, even though he was an ass 90% of the time, showed poor judgement of character. Yes, she was only 19 and was naive, inexperienced, and sheltered, but COME ON. Have some standards, for crying out loud.
WHIT: This man was toxic AF, and I could not get behind him as the romantic lead. He had his rare shining moments, but my first impression of him was terrible, and he didn't get much better from there. He ran hot and cold throughout the entire book, was insufferably cocky and secretive, and he flirted with Inez even though
he was engaged to someone else (then blamed Inez for his attraction to her)
. What a catch.🙄 He clearly wasn’t my type, at all, and while the author occasionally tried to soften his character as the story progressed, the damage had already been done, and I just couldn’t with this man. Allllll the red flags. 🚩
TÍO RICARDO: His personality basically consisted of an anger problem, and he spent the entire novel oscillating between ignoring Inez and trying to ship her back off to Argentina. Like Whit, he was also irritatingly secretive, and he wouldn’t know what accountability was if it slapped him in the face.

Spice: 1🌶️
There are a couple of chaste kisses, plus one more passionate make-out scene with some mildly explicit descriptions.

Content Warnings